To Catch a Falling Star
by Merellia
Summary: Months after Naraku's demise, the Inuyasha group has settled into some kind of routine. But when Kouga arrives looking for help, problems begin to surface with responsibilities and consequences of life after the wish made on the Shikon jewel. IY/K, M/S.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Kagome dropped to rest on her knees, setting her basket down and reaching out to shake the stems of the spade-leafed herb free of any bugs.  She'd forgotten its name again--Kaede would be disappointed--but the plant definitely matched the description of the one the old miko had asked her to gather.  Its velvety leaves reminded her of the short fur on Inuyasha's ears.  He was off hunting somewhere, or possibly checking the boundaries of the forest he'd marked has his territory.  Whichever it was, he'd been gone for two days with Kohaku, the longest he ever stayed away from the rest of them. His pack.  Kagome stroked a silver-fuzzed leaf with the pad of one finger, wished he'd taken her with him, then reversed the direction.  A shudder shivered up her spine; she held back a rueful chuckle.  Just the thought of fur being rubbed the wrong direction was like hearing fingernails scraping down a blackboard, of which sound her memory was fortunately growing dim.

Cutting the stems just above the roots with the knife given her by Kaede, Kagome tried not to wrinkle her nose at the way the strong scent immediately obscured the other scents of the forest clearing with its pungency.  She half-suspected, now, that Inuyasha's frequent protests over having any of his wounds doctored arose more from a dislike of the medicine-smells than his desire to seem all macho-indifferent to pain.

_I think that's enough_.  She left a stem untouched as Kaede had instructed: the plant would grow back more fully next year if trimmed but not cut back entirely.  A piece of twine served to keep the stems in her basket grouped loosely together. Kagome took care in tying the string about them; yesterday she'd accidentally scratched herself with a claw when tying a similar piece of twine about a similar bundle of herbs. It had been a small cut, but still--_how long is it going to take me to get used to this_?  The thought was an irritable one, making Kagome more irritable still at how easy it was to ruffle her temper these days.

A harsh caw drew her attention to the sky.  She stood, shading her eyes with one hand and dusting off the knees of her loose trousers with the other as she cast about with eyes and ears for the source of the cry.  It was a raven, which meant Inuyasha might be nearby: the opportunistic scavengers had taken to following him about as soon as they'd all settled in the village and the hanyou started hunting regularly in the forest.  _There_.  The large black bird passed over some trees a few minutes from where she stood, and she could now hear the beat of someone running, but it wasn't Inuyasha; the rhythm was off from the pace she'd become accustomed to hearing over the past three years, a little faster--

"Kagome."  There was the scuffle of feet skidding to a stop, a pair of warm hands taking hers, bright blue eyes, and a pleased grin.  "Just the person I wanted to see."  His eyes traveled from her head to foot--taking in the details of her altered appearance, she was sure.  Kagome tried not to curl her toes in the grass to hide their clawed tips; it still felt somewhat embarrassing to go barefoot, though she'd never before hesitated to wear sandals or any other sort of open-toed shoe.  But it made her feel almost as if she were flaunting things, which she wasn't; and she didn't want people staring at her.  She'd tried pointing out to Inuyasha that Sesshomaru wore shoes, but the hanyou had only grumbled something about his brother being a crappy example, and her feet needed toughening anyways.

Kouga's gaze returned to hers, his smile wider.  "You're looking beautiful.  Sure you don't want to ditch that dog turd and be my woman?"

Kagome laughed nervously.  Kouga might have changed his mind as regarded her--she thought it was probably something Inuyasha had said or did after Naraku's…death--but that hadn't led to any lessening of the antagonistic stance the wolf youkai and hanyou still displayed towards each other.  "Kouga-kun, it's--it's good to see you," she said, taking a moment to assess his scent.  She hadn't paid much attention to it last time, what with everything his last visit had immediately precipitated.  He smelled woodsier than Inuyasha, muskier and not quite so pleasant, with travel-dust and the scents of others about him; probably his pack members, though the traces weren't fresh.  Puzzled, she said, smiling, "Are you here by yourself?"  

Kouga nodded his head, his dark tail of hair sliding over one shoulder with the movement.  "Ginta and Hakkaku are with the rest of the pack back in our territory. Just wanted to let you know something. Why don't you call that mate of yours--might as well save some time and explain to both of you at once."

"Uh, he's not--Inuyasha--Inuyasha is," Kagome faltered, ears turning back as her eyes slid away from the wolf youkai's.

"He's not what?" Tone puzzled, Kouga leaned closer to her to sniff audibly; Kagome quashed a spike of unhappy dissatisfaction with herself: he did that so naturally.  She wasn't nearly so confident or casual.  For years she had made a point of not looking like Kikyou, not blending in, stubbornly wearing her school uniform even when it was manifestly impractical; now, her physical appearance made blending in an impossibility.  Self-consciousness assailed her whenever she caught herself in a mannerism she recognized from Inuyasha.  She might look like the inu hanyou, but did she have to act like one?  Or should she _try_ to act like one?

Kouga's huff as he stared at her, eyes narrowing, recalled Kagome from her unease.  "You're _not_ mates," he said, his voice rising just above the pitch of an accusing growl. "What the hell's going on?  I was sure that dog-turd would be all over you after you and he figured out what had happened."

"Well," Kagome said uneasily, bending to pick up her basket with the herbs.  She had some ideas about why things had cooled between her and Inuyasha--his and her guilt being foremost among them--but if she wasn't discussing the topic with Inuyasha, it certainly wouldn't be right to discuss it with the wolf youkai.  "Kouga-kun, why don't we head to the village? Inuyasha should be back soon."  She mustered a smile and tried to relax her ears, turning back towards the village.

"Kagome…" Kouga raised one hand to her shoulder.

"Oi! Hands off, wimpy wolf."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Inuyasha dropped lightly from the tree branches where he'd snuck after returning with Kohaku; damned if he was going to let Kouga nose around Kagome, no matter what the wimpy wolf had said about her that night after finishing things off with that bastard Naraku.  "Hands off," he said again, backing up the warning with a low growl before turning his attention to Kagome.

Her expression was one of surprise, though he didn't know whether it was at his reaction to Kouga--that, of all things, shouldn't be unexpected--or the fact that she occasionally considered his lurking about her snooping.  "Inuyasha!"  He tried to ignore his appreciative notice of how appealing she looked as her ears perked and she smiled--so it wasn't his reaction to Kouga, then--and took hold of his sleeve.  "I'm glad you're back. When did you get home?"  _Wait.  She hadn't been ignoring me; she hadn't realized I was there at all__?  He stared down at her, brows pulling together in a frown that masked the confusion of his thoughts.  Even though he had been downwind of her, even if he had been quiet, she should have noticed his youki.  Then again, she hadn't marked Kouga's presence, either, until that raven had called out; and after that it had looked as if she were tracking Kouga's noise.  _What the hell?_  Kagome drew back at his frown and let loose her clasp on his sleeve, uncertainty in the puzzled quirk to her brows.  She was just like a puppy sometimes, so transparent were her feelings. "Inuyasha, Kouga-kun wanted--"_

"I heard."  He cut her off, irked by the speed with which she'd slipped into championing that wimpy wolf and his fucking problems.  Though he _had told Kouga--damnit.  "What is it?" he asked Kouga, knowing he sounded rude.  Kagome made a little sound of protest--at his tone, most likely.  But if the wolf couldn't handle it, he could leave and go bother someone else.  Beg Sesshomaru for help, maybe._

Inuyasha's mouth tightened in a firm line as he suppressed a smirk at the thought; he'd like to see that happen.  Kagome shifted beside him. She could read him too easily sometimes, and with her shaper senses, was getting better at it.  Though she didn't respond just the same as he'd expect her to; a year ago, even this past winter, she would have made her reaction clear with an elbow to his ribs, but now--

He stifled the thought as Kouga said, as obnoxious as ever as he looked between Kagome and Inuyasha, "_You're_ the problem. What the hell is up with you, dog turd, that you haven't mated her yet?"  Kouga grinned tauntingly at Inuyasha, his blue eyes intense with challenge.  "Can't handle a strong bitch?  Or maybe you tried, but she wasn't interested?"  

Inuyasha's ears laid back, a growl scratching in his throat as he arched his fingers, claws tense.   "You . . ."

Kouga glanced at the scarlet-faced and stuttering Kagome, then looked back at Inuyasha to drawl, "Maybe I ought to change my mind and make her my woman after all--"  

Inuyasha ignored Tetsusaiga at his waist to lunge, arm swinging towards Kouga even as the other male dodged nimbly from the hanyou's path.  "Fucking wolf," he snarled, twisting out of his lunge to spring after the wolf again.  Even without the shikon shards, the youkai was a swift opponent, still quicker the almost any other youkai but Sesshomaru. And Kagura, maybe, whatever had happened to her.  His ears turned forward as he began to move more aggressively.  "Stay--away--from--Kagome--_asshole--_"  Each word was punctuated with a clawed swipe, though only one of those landed when Kouga mistimed an attempted kick to Inuyasha's gut.  Though the kick missed, his claws scored, however, ripping through the cloth and skin of Inuyasha's shoulder.

The hanyou sneered, fangs flashing.  He blocked another kick, grabbing hold of the wolf youkai's leg and twisting, throwing his own weight to lend force to the slam that sent Kouga skidding across the earth before fetching up, heavily, against a tree trunk.  Inuyasha exhaled shortly, satisfied, some of the tension easing from his ready crouch as he watched the wolf to see what Kouga might try next.

"Inuyasha, please . . . "  Damn if the bitch was going to ask him not to hurt Kouga. 

Inuyasha straightened, glaring over his shoulder at Kagome. She stood at the edge of the clearing across from him, hands twisting together, unhappiness in the set of her shoulders and her scent.  "Fuck! He should be keeping his nose to himself."  A sudden unease speared through him, impelling him to add with a blustery suspicion, "Unless you _want _him hanging around you like that."

Kouga raised himself to hands and knees, shaking his head and dislodging some of the leaves that had fallen there with his impact against the tree. "Dog turd . . ."

"Baka!" Kagome yelled, stamping over to Inuyasha and glaring up at him as he moved to face her. "You know that's not what I meant!"  

Her voice held the undertones of a growl in it, the former smoothness of her voice roughened; Inuyasha found himself wondering, for a wild moment, what she'd sound like when mating. What noises she'd make. Gods.  Inuyasha angrily wrenched his mind back on track, snapping, "You're _mine_. My pack. He can't come here and--"

"Dog turd, have you forgotten who you're fighting with?"  

Inuyasha half-turned towards Kouga as Kagome yelped, her voice pitched high with distress, "Kouga-kun, _don't_!"  The wolf, who must have used his leverage against the tree to add more force to his run and the kick being aimed at Inuyasha, grunted and wrenched his weight about mid-air to alter the path of his kick, landing past Inuyasha. 

As Kouga tried to catch his balance, Inuyasha saw an opportunity and pounced.  He and Kouga crashed to the ground, Inuyasha atop Kouga.  Both were snarling openly at each other as Inuyasha shifted, seeking to pin Kouga's legs and arms.  Inuyasha sat heavily on the wolf youkai's thighs as the two grappled with one another.  Kouga, having caught hold of Inuyasha's rosary, twisted it chokingly tight about one of his hands; Inuyasha grabbed at the wolf's wrist, digging in his claws in an attempt to loosen Kouga's hold.  

Unable to jerk his head out of the way, he ignored the stinging blow that cracked against his cheek to pound his own fist into Kouga's midsection.  If he could just knock a little breath out of the youkai . . . he hit again.  And--there.  Kouga wheezed, Inuyasha ripped the hand free of his rosary and slammed it to the ground, catching the other hand as Kouga aimed a clawed swipe at Inuyasha's ears and pinned it, too.  The growl in his throat raised, rattling fiercely as the two youkai exchanged glares.  Kouga heaved, trying to throw Inuyasha off, but his pinned arms and legs robbed him of enough leverage to do so. Inuyasha bared his teeth, the volume of his growl increasing.

A hand touched Inuyasha's shoulder, Kagome's scent wrapping around him. "Inuyasha."  Inuyasha stiffened, refusing to break gazes with Kouga.  His ears twisted back towards her instead.  "Don't hurt Kouga-kun, please.  He's a _friend."_

Kouga finally looked away from Inuyasha, turning his face to the side and falling silent.  "Wasn't going to," Inuyasha replied in an annoyed tone, releasing the youkai's wrists and sitting back.  As Kagome let go of him--damn--and stepped away, Inuyasha stood, satisfied, and turned his back on the wolf to say to Kagome, "Anyways, we're done now."

Kagome looked from him to Kouga, now standing and dusting himself off, and back again. "You were . . ."

Inuyasha shrugged, running a clawed finger under the rosary to straighten its askew fall.  The cuts from Kouga weren't worth bothering about; they'd mend quickly enough, and his haori, too.  "Keh.  He's fucking not going to make comments about you anymore, so--" arrogantly, now, "what would I need to kill him for?"

"Shit," Kouga said indignantly.  "I _let you win this time, dog turd.  Just so you wouldn't do something to make Kagome angry with you.  __I could kill __you if I wanted.  Five hundred years from now you wouldn't be able to kill me, even if you fought every day between now and then."_

"You couldn't kill me," Inuyasha said smugly, crossing his arms over his chest as he strolled cockily across the clearing to fetch Kagome's forgotten basket.  "You wanted me to help you."  

"I _wouldn't, but I __could," Kouga insisted, glaring._

Inuyasha adopted an expression of superiority, shoving his hands up his sleeves after handing the basket to Kagome.  "You couldn't. You wanted me to help you, wasn't that why you showed up here again?"

"You're just like your brother sometimes," taunted Kouga, coming to walk beside Kagome as the three headed towards the village by way of the grass-grown trail--little more than a deer track, really--winding its way along the edge of the clearing.

"That asshole! Fuck off."  Inuyasha hastened his pace a few steps in front of the others to emphasize the fact that he was the one leading them towards the village, then slowed to walk between Kouga and Kagome; no way was he going to let that wimpy wolf walk next to her.

"Dog turd."

"Wimpy wolf."  Inuyasha started to feel bored.  Somehow, exchanges with Kouga always seemed to reach the name-calling level pretty quickly.  It made him feel like a bratty pup.  He held back a sigh.

"Wait, wait, _wait_," Kagome said, leaning forward to look from Inuyasha to Kouga, her brows crinkling together anxiously.  "Inuyasha, you weren't going to hurt him?  And, Kouga-kun, you let Inuyasha win?  I don't understand.  It didn't look to me like either of you were faking."

"Faking! Keh, bitch, I could have killed the wimpy wolf if I'd wanted to," Inuyasha scoffed, but inwardly puzzled over Kagome's response.  It hadn't been apparent to her, what they had been doing?

"_Would have, not __could have, dog turd."_

"Keh!"

"Kagome," Kouga said slowly. "What . . . did it look like to you?"

Kagome chewed on her lower lip as she thought over her reply, making Inuyasha wince inwardly. If she weren't careful, the bitch would bite herself. He lowered his gaze, appearing to study the path before him as he divided his attention between listening to Kagome and sneaking looks at her feet, small and white like lilies in the grass.  "I don't know . . . I guess it looked like you two were fighting--Inuyasha sort of started it--and then Inuyasha pinned you to the ground, and then you two stopped."

"_I didn't start it! The fucking wolf started it," Inuyasha protested, shooting a glare at Kouga. Fuck. Now Kagome was thinking he'd tried to pick a fight with her precious wolf.  However, he couldn't help adding, "Not that I didn't want to kick his ass."_

Kouga sneered at Inuyasha.  "Dog turd." He paused, as if thinking a minute--Inuyasha snorted to himself: Kouga, thinking?--then continued, "Kagome, this area is Inuyasha's territory, and I'm an intruder here, right?"

"You're a friend, Kouga-kun. Friends aren't intruders," Kagome said firmly. 

"Well . . . "  Kouga scratched his head uncertainly with a finger, shooting a demanding look at Inuyasha, which he ignored; he'd let the wolf stumble his way through an explanation, and then supply more correct answers as he wanted to.  That was what Miroku did all the time to make himself look more intelligent than everybody else; it should work just as well for Inuyasha now. "Maybe among humans," Kouga conceded. "But I'm a youkai, and Inuyasha's a youkai, and he's claimed this area as his territory. He didn't ask me to come; that makes me an intruder. And then I did something he didn't like around his--around one of his pack. If he hadn't done something about it, he'd not be any good as a pack leader. See?"

Inuyasha studied Kagome covertly from the corner of his eye.  _This is it_, he thought, alert to every nuance of her body and scent.  This is what had been off about her ever since she'd changed, why she wasn't reacting to things as he'd expected.  Damn it for taking so long to be clear; and damn that wolf for having provided the situation to make it clear.  

"Maybe I understand why you were fighting, then," Kagome said after a moment, "A pack leader has to be able to make sure his pack gets treated as he wants, right?"  She nodded without waiting for a reply, obviously feeling the rightness of the answer.  "Otherwise he wouldn't be a good protector of his pack."  She paused, ears twitching as a stricken expression crossed her face, making Inuyasha wonder.  But instead of giving any explanation, she took a breath and smoothed her expression, saying, "I don't understand why you stopped, though."

"Well--I agreed with what dog turd wanted."

Kagome shook her head, slipping one hand through the loop of her basket handle so that she could walk with her arms crossed.  "But you didn't say anything. Neither of you did."

"He didn't have to.  He looked away, after I'd pinned him."  Inuyasha supplied the answer, worrying the situation over in his mind.  This was definitely it; fuck and damn. She probably didn't have any idea about how to listen to what her instincts were telling her, or what they meant.  Shit. How the hell was he going to teach her about instincts?

"Aa. I let him win."

Inuyasha curled a lip in a silent snarl at the wolf. "Let, hell."

"Eh-he he," Kagome inserted nervously.  "Kouga-kun, how's your pack doing?"  Inuyasha let her change the subject, since she seemed bound to interfere if he tried knocking some more sense into Kouga; anyway, it gave him another chance to think the situation over if she were busy quizzing the wolf.

Kouga's pride was apparent in his voice.  "Tsumeko had pups this spring, three strong ones.  They're just about ready to learn to hunt.  Though it's not all well," he added, sobering.  "It's about that--"

"Oiiiiiiii!  Inuyasha-sama!"  A young boy's voice rang out from beyond the path's curve ahead.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"Inuyasha-sama!"  Kagome tensed at the sound of the voice, shifting so as to look past Inuyasha at Kouga, who seemed unruffled, then towards the sound of the voice coming from the path ahead of them.  She could hear the boy--the young man, she corrected herself; he was only a few years younger than she, and was a man full grown by the standards of the feudal era--running along the path; moments later he was in sight.  "Inuyasha-sama," he exclaimed with poorly-concealed delight.  Kagome stole a look at Inuyasha as well, noting that he had arranged his features into the expression of gruff annoyance he usually wore around the b--Kohaku.  

"You were louder than a herd of oxen, twerp," Inuyasha observed sourly as Kohaku approached them.  

Kohaku grinned unrepentantly, looking up at the hanyou with eyes shining in pride. "Humans wouldn't have heard me at all."

Inuyasha grimaced, uncomfortable as always with the hero-worship so plain in Kohaku's treatment of him.  _He's rather cute when he tries to look annoyed_, Kagome thought wistfully.  She was glad he hadn't said anything about her having embraced him earlier, when trying to get him not to hurt Kouga-kun.  She wasn't quite sure why she'd done so, and he probably didn't care for her to have done it; he'd been increasingly distant ever since Naraku and then the whole thing with the Shikon jewel.  Although now she had an idea of why he'd been so angry with her when she woke up the morning after that fight with Naraku; characteristically, he'd never explained.  

"Keh! With all your yelling?  Walking quietly's no help when your mouth gives you away.  What good would that do you if a hungry youkai happened by?"

Kohaku laughed, walking backwards in front of the other three as he continued to talk to Inuyasha. "It's your forest; you'd let that kind of youkai in this far?  Besides, I'm sure they would've run when they heard me calling you."  Without waiting for a reply to that, he added, "You didn't tell me you were going to find Kagome-neesan," in a reproachful tone. 

_I should figure out a way to apologize to him.  I'd do it again, but I didn't know what it might imply to him_.  Suggesting--whether by word or action--that Inuyasha wasn't capable of protecting her, or the others in the pack, was not something Kagome would ever want to do. Sometimes his self-confidence seemed so fragile, and he'd been trying hard to be responsible to them all.  "Inuyasha, why don't you introduce Kohaku?"  she asked, mentally shaking herself.  _I'm so tired that I'm not paying attention.  Stop it_. _I almost forgot that Kohaku wasn't here when Kouga stopped by this spring_.  She'd not been sleeping well since, well, for ages; but that was no excuse for rudeness.

"_Your friend," the hanyou retorted, before grudgingly saying, with a jerk of his thumb towards Kouga, "Kohaku, this is Kouga.  He's a wolf pack leader."_

Kohaku, having refrained from looking directly at the stranger until introduced--his mother had instilled some really beautiful manners in him, Kagome thought--paused in his backwards walk to bow politely.  "Pleased to meet you."

"Aa."  Kagome relaxed at the wolf youkai's offhanded response; she didn't think they'd ever met each other before the last fight with Naraku, but Kagome was fairly certain that Kohaku had been fighting with Kouga's pack while Kouga was in the courtyard with Inuyasha and the rest of them.  Inuyasha had mentioned once that Kouga had lost some of his pack in the fighting; Kagome experienced a rush of relief, glad that the wolf youkai appeared to have traveled by himself this time.

As Kohaku straightened, he smiled at the wolf youkai. "Elder Sister has mentioned you.  She said you were almost the fastest youkai she'd ever seen."  He began his backwards walk once more as they moved forward, glancing over his shoulder from time to time to make sure of the path.  Their pace had him walking at a skipping step as he sought to keep in front of them.

"Yeah, dog turd here can't keep up with me," Kouga bragged.  He ignored Inuyasha's growl, asking, "Elder Sister?"

Kohaku nodded. "Sango.  The female taijiya in Inuyasha's pack."  His smile reappeared.  "She was the best taijiya in our whole village."

"Oi, twerp, stop jumping about like a grasshopper," grumbled Inuyasha.

"Only Inuyasha is a demon stupid enough to travel with a demon hunter," Kouga said dryly. 

Kagome closed her eyes at Kouga's remark, resigned and tired both; Inuyasha was unlikely to let the comment pass, and she didn't know what to expect from the two of them.  There was so much she'd missed to their earlier fight.  "Kohaku-kun, would you mind carrying my basket for me?"  She passed him the basket without waiting for a response, hearing Inuyasha beside her draw in a breath.  Hastily, she added, "Ne, Kouga-kun, I'm sure Kohaku would like to know more about your pack.  Tell him about Ginta and Hakkaku; I'm sure he'd like them."   With that, she reached out to take Inuyasha's hand and tug on it, slowing her pace to let Kohaku and Kouga draw ahead.

As soon as Kouga and Kohaku were several yards in front of them, Kagome loosened her hold on Inuyasha's hand.  Disappointingly, he didn't try to retain their clasp.  "Hell, bitch, you shouldn't try interfering like that," he said, displeasure evident in his scowl.

Kagome pitched her voice low, trying to keep it out of earshot for Kouga.  "Inuyasha, on the way back here from Naraku's, do you recall how Sesshomaru kept insulting you, but refused to fight?"

"That asshole. . . . "

"I think he's like that, too," Kagome said, tipping her head towards Kouga.  "Most of the time it's because they know you'll react."

"Keh! They ought to expect me to!"  Inuyasha crossed his arms, claws digging into the cloth of his sleeves.

Kagome nodded patiently, looking up at the hanyou.  "That's just it, Inuyasha, they do."  His bangs had grown so long that his eyelashes flicked against them when he blinked, as he was doing now, the irritated scowl easing into puzzlement. 

"They _want me to react?"  His ears lowered uncertainly before turning forward. Inuyasha grinned, a certain aggressive relish entering his features. "Then they __want to fight."_

Pushing her hair back from her eyes as she made a noise of dissent, Kagome shivered when her hand brushed in front of one of her ears, ruffling the sensitive guard hairs. "Oh!"  She twitched, then shook her head more firmly, dropping her hand with fingers clenched; claws pricked into her palm and she eased her fist before she hurt herself.  At Inuyasha's checked stride and inquiring glance, she said, "It was nothing, really.  No, I don't think they want to fight, exactly.  That comment Sesshomaru made about how you used Tesutsaiga, for instance. . . ."

Inuyasha's teeth clicked together in an angry snap as his scowl returned.  "What of it?"

Kagome shifted her gaze to study the leaves of the birches alongside of which they were walking. The leaves had started to turn over the past few weeks, and their gold was just the color of Inuyasha's eyes.  "Well, do you remember why you didn't take a swing at him in response?"  She'd always liked the contrast of pale white trunks and vivid birch leaves in the autumn; and now, as the wind ruffled through them and brought her their scent--she tried to put a finger on what it reminded her of; almost like grass and drying hay, but more mellow--she drew in a little breath of delight.  No matter how unexpectedly events had turned out, there were some gains; not quite sufficient to compensate for the loss of her family or the trouble she'd caused Inuyasha, but trees and family were different orders of things, anyway.

"I was holding Kohaku, that's why!" Inuyasha said indignantly, after a pause.  "I couldn't carry him _and_ fight Sesshomaru."  He said this in a tone that indicated it should have been obvious to a five-year-old.

Kagome looked away from the trees to smile at him.  "I think he was counting on that."

Inuyasha drew back, appalled; she could even catch the tang of it in his scent.  "He was doing it just to irritate me?  For _kicks_?  What kind of fucking asshole is that twisted?"  Kagome lifted a finger to her lips in a gesture for him to lower his voice, looking pointedly at Kouga.  Inuyasha's eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth, following her gaze to the wolf youkai.  "I should rip _both_ their guts out."

"Half of their amusement is seeing you get angry, though.  I could suggest another way for you to respond."  Kagome felt momentarily guilty for her willingness to explain this to Inuyasha--it wouldn't exactly promote very social behavior--but if it kept him from getting his temper ruffled so predictably, it was probably a good thing.  _It's been used against him, sometimes, his temper.  People taunting him so he'd get angry and maybe loose his head in a fight, that they might kill him.  _I don't want that. Besides, I've become such an obligation on him; if this could help, then I _ought_ to tell him_.  Inuyasha looked suspicious.  "Just do the same to them. Wait until they're in a position where they can't respond the way they'd like, and there you go."_

"Keh! It doesn't sound too great."

"It doesn't have an invitation to draw swords in it," Kagome conceded, eyes closing as she grinned up at Inuyasha. Her earlier delight in the leaves returned, swelling into a flash of joy; she was so glad, no matter what had happened to her in consequence, that his wish hadn't been to become a youkai. He was so perfectly himself; she loved him intensely for that.  "But it will irritate them the way they irritate you now, as long as you don't say something so wicked that they've no choice but to fight over it."  

Kagome opened her eyes to find Inuyasha looking down at her, his cat-slit pupils narrow against the afternoon sunlight filtering through her trees.  She wondered if hers looked the same, or if her pupils were even noticeable, since her eyes were darker.  In a voice less irked than she had anticipated, he said, "So you think that'll work."

"You've insulted people to get them to fight you; it's just like that, only not so extreme. It might take some practice, but I think it will work.  Or you could just ignore them. Since they want you to react, if you don't react, they'll have no reason to keep trying."  

A grin turned up the corners of Inuyasha's mouth.  "Training, eh?"

Kagome laughed. "_Not like Toutousai's," she said, knowing he was remembering his efforts building the old demon's bathing tub.  It had taken him almost a year afterwards before he'd told her of that fiasco, too aware of the humor of the situation not to want to share it with someone, but too touchy about his pride to tell it easily.  He'd told it to her one of the rare times they were alone, on the way to the well from Kaede's village--their village, now.  Knowing he felt comfortable enough with her to share the story . . . she hoped to meet the little cat youkai one day.  __Of course, he did refuse to tell me the ending until I promised to come back after only three days in my time.  A bribe and a promise that I'd be back soon . . . that was rather clever of him, really, as an alternative to yelling or making me "sit" him._

Inuyasha glanced away, his grin becoming smug.  Kagome would bet it was the prospect of being thought to do something wicked.

Ahead of them, Kohaku turned around, his eyes wide with laughter.  "Kagome-neesan, did they _really_ steal all a daimyo's flowers for you?"

Kagome flushed, red warming her cheeks.  "Well. . . . "

Kouga snorted. "Those baka. I didn't need their help."

Inuyasha said, with a goading gleefulness that Kagome hoped she was the only one to hear, "No-one could have helped you, wimpy wolf. Your cause was doomed."

"_You never brought Kagome flowers, dog turd."_

Kagome said to Kohaku, talking over the squabbling of the other two youkai, "They took all the peonies out of a daimyou's garden in Kouzuke province a year ago this past spring, because they knew I liked the flowers Kouga brought me once.  Only when they came to bring them that night, they disturbed Inuyasha."

"They nearly pissed themselves when I jumped out of the tree to talk to them," Inuyasha inserted, abruptly turning his attention away from Kouga.  Kagome wondered who had gotten the last word in that argument.  When she saw the hanyou's eyes slide over to give Kouga a pointed stare and a fanged smirk, she bit down on her lower lip--holding back a smile or a sigh, she wasn't sure which.  It looked like the quarrel was still ongoing.

"Ginta and Hakkaku were so startled that they dropped all the flowers, you see.  And then, when they were--were--"

"Running away," Inuyasha supplied.

Kouga bristled.  "You'd recognize it from experience, dog turd."

"Ah, well, they trampled on all the peonies."  Kagome glanced between Inuyasha and Kouga, having second thoughts about her earlier comments to the hanyou.  

Kohaku's face crumpled with laughter.  "Did the daimyo catch them?"

"Fuck," said Inuyasha sourly, "he came after _us_."

"I guess that Ginta and Hakkaku had been a little too noisy when stripping the garden, and as petals kept dropping as they ran, it left a trail straight to us," Kagome explained.  Now it was Kouga who had started to smirk, as Inuyasha's features continued to darken.

Kohaku looked appropriately awe-struck to satisfy both Inuyasha and Kouga, Kagome noted; his expression was a perfect mix of laughter combined with dismay.  "What happened then?" he asked.

"Miroku managed to convince them that we weren't the culprits, but the daimyo--"

"Kagome."  She looked at Inuyasha inquiringly.  "Not. One. More. Word."

"But," Kagome protested.  Her eyes rounded as she remembered how the incident had concluded.  "Oh."  

"What happened, what happened?" Kohaku asked eagerly, glancing between the two.  Kouga looked interested as well, sizing up Inuyasha's obvious disgruntlement with the beginnings of humor glittering in his eyes.  

"Um, well."  Kagome flicked a nervous glance between those two and Inuyasha, who gave her a flat stare.  Her ears lowered.  "Er. Well. We--we--we satisfied the daimyo and left his territory the next day," Kagome finished in a rush.  

Kohaku's expression was crestfallen. "That can't be the whole story."

"It's all you're going to hear, twerp," Inuyasha said gruffly, catching hold of Kagome's wrist and dragging her between Kohaku and Kouga in the direction of the village.  She could see the tall branches of the God Tree over the canopy around them, the ancient tree looming over those around it; they weren't too far from the village, now.

Kagome lengthened her stride so as to keep up with Inuyasha without stumbling.  "Ginta and Hakkaku went back to Kouga--Inuyasha, you can slow down, I'm not going to say anything--"

"I could ask Older Brother to tell me," Kohaku said, hurrying to catch up.

"Look at that.  Dog turd's embarrassed about something," Kouga observed, strolling after the other three at a casual pace, crossing his arms behind his head.

Kohaku shot him a startled glance. "Inuyasha-sama, embarrassed?"

Inuyasha snarled. "Miroku is not going to say a word to you on the subject, twerp."

"He probably had to play fetch for the daimyo," Kouga suggested slyly.

"The only stick I'd fetch is one to shove up your ass!"

Certain that neither Kohaku nor Kouga could see her face as they walked behind, Kagome shot Inuyasha a quelling look, saying at the same time, "Inuyasha, Miroku was going to be handling the service for Sai-san; he died while you and Kohaku were away.  I think Kaede-bachan was planning to tend the shrine this afternoon.  Do you want them there to listen to Kouga's news?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder to smile at the wolf youkai reassuringly.  He grunted a terse acknowledgement; Kagome turned back to Inuyasha, raising her brows in question.

"Aa.  Might as well," Inuyasha said grudgingly; after a remark like the last one, Kouga was fortunate not to have started another fight.  And Kagome imagined she'd be in for an earful later when Inuyasha gave her his opinion on her continued interference.  The hanyou paused for a moment, then looked back in turn. "Kohaku, you run ahead and tell Sango, and see if you can find the others and have them come."

"Hai," Kohaku said crisply, bowing once again to Kouga. "Please excuse me. It has been a pleasure to meet you, Kouga-san."  He straightened. "Shall I leave your basket with Elder Sister, Kagome-neesan?"

"If you don't mind. I'm sorry for the trouble."

"It's no trouble. Ja, then!"

Kagome smiled, watching the b--young man dash off down the path.  "He has _such beautiful manners."_

Inuyasha's eyes narrowed, facing her suspiciously.  "Is that supposed to make me feel guilty? Because it doesn't."

Laughing, Kagome shook her head, stepping apart from Inuyasha to look at both him and Kouga. "Not at all. You and Kouga-kun are . . . unique unto yourselves. True individuals."

The two unique individuals shared a bristling glance, uncertain that they cared to be lumped together.

"Keh!  I'm nothing like that wimpy wolf."

"Who'd want you to be, dog turd?"

"Wimpy wolf."

"Dog turd!"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Kohaku jogged along the last mile or so of the path leading towards the village, Kagome's basket bumping gently against his ribs with every stride.  As he ran, he concentrated on his breathing. Inuyasha-sama had said one could run longer if one moderated one's breathing, in through the nose and out through the mouth; his own father had said something similar about fighting. Kohaku was pleased that their advice complemented each other's so well.  He also paid attention to the placing of his feet; landing heel-first was quieter, and he could be quieter still by making sure not to brush against any of the undergrowth, or do something stupid like stepping on a twig.

Kouga had seemed pretty interesting, a full youkai--the first one Kohaku had met aside from Sesshomaru and Jaken, if one didn't count whomever he had met while being manipulated by Naraku; well, and he lived with Shippou and Myouga-jii, so he supposed it didn't really count as anything special after all.  But Kouga looked tough, rougher than Inuyasha-sama; wilder, Kohaku supposed.  He was glad that his family hadn't run into any wolf youkai in the past; from something Elder Sister had said, Kouga's pack had once eaten humans when they felt like it, though they'd stopped sometime after meeting Kagome-neesan.

There:  only a short distance from the last of the trees stood the house, the closest of all the village homes to the forest and the shrine.  Unlike the others situated not far from it, its front doors and spacious porch faced the trees; there was another door on the village side of the house, too, but Kohaku preferred the forest-looking, paper-screened aspect to the house better than the more formal village-side entrance.  No other houses in the village had paper screens; they'd only been able to manage such by bringing them back--he'd been the one to fetch them--from his and Sango's old village; he liked how they reminded him of Shinta, who'd been his best friend.  He'd knocked a hole in one of the paper panels a few years ago when over at his friend's house, and his mother had sent him back with a gift of food and paper that Kohaku could patch the tear himself.  The paper had come all the way from Kyoto, a gift from one of the village's former clients, and had a translucent pattern of maple leaves worked into the thin whiteness of it.

Stepping onto the porch, he slid the door back.  "Elder Sister?"  Kohaku called, setting the basket down.  If his sister were awake to hear him, he wouldn't have to take off his sandals.  

"Kohaku?"  Her voice sounded muffled, as if it were _maybe coming from cooking area._

"I'm on the porch, Elder Sister," he called back, shifting his weight impatiently from one foot to the other. "Inuyasha-sama sent me ahead; he's coming back with a friend of Kagome-neesan's, the wolf youkai you told me was here this spring?  Kouga-san.  I--"  He lowered his voice as his sister appeared; she'd definitely been in the kitchen, and was patting her hands dry on the green apron she wore.  It was tied a little higher than was her wont, to accommodate the loss of her waistline and spread of her belly.

"Kouga is here?"  Sango's delicate eyebrows raised in surprise as she came to greet him, Kirara following after her, tails flagged high in the air.  "I didn't think he'd be back after the ruckus he caused this spring."

"Kagome-neesan said something about him--his having some news," Kohaku said, trying to remember Kagome-neesan's exact words.  He eyed his sister carefully as Kirara approached him, sniffed carefully, then wove a greeting around his ankles.  Sango's skin was creamy, flush with--with heat, maybe, if she'd been in the kitchen.  "Hey, Kirara," he murmured, bending to pet the fire cat's small form.

"Really?  I suppose Miroku will be interested.  Would you mind fetching him?  They're burying Sai-san in the cemetery field behind the shrine, and are probably to be done soon if they're not already."  Sango looked past Kohaku at the forest, then back to him. "How far behind you are the others?"

"About a mile," Kohaku replied, straightening.

"Then I've time to heat some water for tea."  

"Aa, I think so."

"If Miroku's standing next to a pretty girl, watch him carefully and smack him for me if he does anything perverted, would you?"  Sango smiled at Kohaku; his most recent growth spurt had put him just at eye level with her, finally, and he could see the glint in her eye that indicated she was serious and Miroku in trouble if he were up to any antics.

"Haaai," he said, turning the step off the porch to the ground into a jump.  Kirara chirped a farewell.  "I'll be back soon."

"Take care!" Sango called from behind him; as he jogged away, he could hear the door slide shut again.  

Kohaku wished again, for possibly the hundredth time, that he hadn't been on a trip to their old village when Kouga had last come.  He'd missed so much, being away then!  Everyone had noticed how strangely Kagome-neesan had begun to act late that spring, starting nervously at the least bit of noise, flinching when she'd passed by outhouses and the ovens wherein roasted the cocoons of the silkworms cultivated by several of the village women; but with her obvious health contradicting any suspicion of illness, the situation had been chalked up to lingering bad dreams about Naraku's defeat, and the abnormalities subsumed by routine.  

That was how things had been when Kohaku left; by the time he'd returned, Kouga had come and gone, leaving an infuriated Inuyasha and a stricken Kagome in his wake.  It had been a horrible situation to which to come home; Inuyasha-sama yelling at Kagome-neesan, having finally pressured her to confess the wish she'd made that had dispersed the Shikon jewel, and Kagome-neesan saying nothing but apologies.  _It wasn't really her fault. She didn't know what was going to happen_, Kohaku thought.  _Even though she said she was responsible, it doesn't make it her _fault.  

Kohaku sighed, hurrying along the dirt streets towards Kaede-baasan's house.  He'd try to see if he could find her first, as she would need the most time to get to the pack's house.  He never wanted to see Kagome-neesan weep; she had not done so since returning from her last trip through the well, and she didn't after finding out what the consequences of her wish were to be--but her face had been so tight, and so guiltily miserable when looking at Inuyasha-sama that Kohaku almost wished she had wept; he could have tried to comfort her, then, if Inuyasha-sama had still been angry.

"Kaede-baasan?" he called, approaching the house; but a tentative peek past the door curtain into the room showed it empty, the fire stoked carefully without a pot over or by it; she'd not been here in a while, then, and hadn't planned to be back soon.  The shrine was next, then.

Just past Kaede's were the steps to the shrine and its first gate.  Kohaku jogged up them, wondering what a youkai like Kouga could possibly have problems with that he couldn't handle himself, now that Naraku was dead.  Was his pack being attacked? But surely he wouldn't have left them if that were the case.  At the first landing of the stairs, just inside the second gate, Kohaku paused by the stone basin to ladle some water over his hands and rinse his mouth, careful to spit the rinse water only into the little moat surrounding the basin.  The purification done, he climbed the last few stairs and looked around the shrine grounds.  No sign of Kaede-baasan.  That meant the temple itself, though he hoped he wouldn't be interrupting anything important.

Kohaku didn't have to. Before he even got as far as the temple, a russet streak shot through its doorway at him, shrieking.  "Diiiiiiiiiiie, taijiya!"  Leaping off the porch straight at him, it howled piercingly, "I am a fearsome youkai and I will killlllll youuuuuu!"  

With a laugh, Kohaku shrank back, pretended to cower at the small form as it landed in front of him.  "Don't eat me! Don't eat me!"

A puff of tail twitched in satisfaction.  "Not today. You're too scrawny."  The exchange was routine, though the initial threats varied every time Kohaku returned.  Shippou hopped from one foot to the other, demanding, "Well? Well?  How startled were you? Did I sound scary?"

"Pretty startled, and very scary--for a ball of fluff," Kohaku replied, meeting the small-fanged growl with a grin as he shifted his cowering stance to a crouch that put him at eye-level with the young kitsune, who otherwise only came up to Kohaku's knees.

"Next time I'll come at you from behind!  Did you just get back?  Is Inuyasha back with you?"

"I've been back a short while only, and yes.  We've a visitor, though," Kohaku answered, standing as the red hakama of the old miko's garb caught his eye.  

"Kohaku-san, welcome back. Did your trip go well?" Kaede said, stepping onto the temple porch.

"Who? Who's visiting?" Shippou asked, tugging on Kohaku's trousers for attention.

Kohaku nodded to Kaede, "It did, thank you."  He reached down to tap firmly on Shippou's nose in a gesture he'd picked up from watching Inuyasha-sama.  "It's not nice to interrupt when I'm talking to someone else, Shippou-kun."  Ignoring the kit's disgusted grimace, he looked back up to Kaede to say, "Inuyasha-sama and Kagome-neesan were hoping you might be able to join them at the pack house. Kouga-san is here."

"Hm. That one again.  Yes, I'll join them.  Shippou, do you want to go with Kohaku-san?  --I assume," Kaede said, glancing from the kit to Kohaku, "that you're also in search of Miroku-san?  The rest of Sai-san's family came back by here a while ago; I think he should be about done."

"Thank you," Kohaku replied, then turned to Shippou inquiringly. 

"I'll go with Kohaku," Shippou announced.  "I want to ride on your shoulders."

Kohaku knelt again, letting the kitsune clamber over his back and straddle his neck.  He held up his hands for Shippou to grasp, "No pulling the hair," he instructed, carefully standing up to adjust for his new balance without lurching.

"Yeah, yeah. Go up!"  

The one and only time the kitsune had managed to talk Inuyasha into letting him ride on the hanyou's shoulders, Inuyasha had moved so swiftly that Shippou, startled and fearing to unbalance and fall, had grabbed hold of Inuyasha's ears.  Kohaku turned his laugh at the memory into a smile for Kaede-baasan.  "Thanks again."  He'd learned a few new curses from that incident; Shippou might have, too, had he not been dazed by the speed with which he'd changed a perch on Inuyasha's shoulders for a seat on the ground.

Shippou tugged on Kohaku's right hand, steering the human boy around the temple.  "This way.  Is Kouga by himself? Did he and Inuyasha fight?  They _always_ fight when they meet each other," the young youkai informed Kohaku in a knowledgeable tone.  "Kouga once stole Kagome, and Inuyasha doesn't like him at _all_.  And Kouga says that dogs stink, so he doesn't like Inuyasha, either."

"So I've heard," Kohaku said, amused at the flood of information; he'd heard it all before, but refrained from saying so to Shippou; the kitsune was a gossip at heart, and liked to feel as if he were first in sharing any news.  "Kouga-san is here by himself, and if he and Inuyasha-sama fought, it was before I caught up with them.  But they argued a lot." 

"Go this way now," Shippou replied, squeezing again on Kohaku's hand as the path made a turn towards the back of the shrine.  "That's weird, that he's all alone. What did he and Inuyasha argue about?" 

"It was mostly just insults.  Kouga-san and Kagome-neesan were telling me about a thing with peonies, and Inuyasha said some of Kouga's pack were cowards, so they called each other names."

Shippou giggled. "The peonies!"  He squeezed Kohaku's hands, demanding, "Jump down some of the stairs. Inuyasha must've been talking about Ginta and Hakkaku.  They're nice, I guess.  They let me have some of their fish, one night when they were sleeping nearby us. But they're awful idiots sometimes. Worse than Inuyasha when he's being the biggest jerk ever.  Did he try getting Kagome to be his mate?"

Kohaku passed under the gate at the rear of the shrine and began descending the stairs, skipping every other one with careful jumps.  Reaching the landing, he skipped over the last three stairs to land with a thump that had Shippou shrieking and clutching tightly at his hands. "No, he didn't."  He looked over the field at the bottom of the stairs, seeking out the dark earth of a fresh grave and--there, yes; Miroku was standing at its foot by himself, staff tucked into the crook of one arm as he clasped his hands together.

"That's weird," Shippou said again, kicking his heels against Kohaku's chest; obediently, Kohaku moved forward again, taking the last flight of stairs more slowly.  "I wonder if he doesn't like how she smells now.  But Kagome's scent is really nice."  The little kitsune sniffed, as if he could smell his adoptive mother right there.

Kohaku flushed, imagining what Kagome-neesan must smell like, if he could tell. It seemed he wasn't the only one to think that the changes were an improvement for Kagome; he'd thought her cute before, for a girl, but now . . . her _ears.  It was adorable the way they'd turn towards you.  They looked so soft, too; he kept having to squelch the urge to feel them.  And her long canine teeth, too, sometimes their tips would peep over her lower lip when she smiled. Kohaku would have wished to be her age, if she hadn't set such a vivid example of what could happen with wishes.  _

"Miroku!  Miiiiiirokuuuu!" Shippou shouted as soon as Kohaku stepped off the last stair into the field.  Across the grass from them, Miroku turned in their direction, shading his eyes from the lowering sun's glare with a hand, then waved.  Shippou jigged excitedly, clutching Kohaku's hands. "Let me tell him, let me tell him, please?" he begged Kohaku.

"Alright, but tell him straightaway.  No guessing games, or making him figure out which hand you've hidden the pebble in, or I'll tell."  Kohaku grinned at Shippou's groan of disappointment before the kitsune grudgingly agreed.

Miroku having started toward them, they met up with the priest midway.  "Welcome back, Kohaku-kun," he said in his smooth voice and with one of his genuine smiles.  He had a repertoire of them that Kohaku had seen him put on display for various women, from the wistful, lost-boy grin that had obtained them a night's shelter on the way back from Naraku's, to the wicked, just-ask-me-and-see-what-I-won't-do smile he reserved for the prettiest women in a village when requesting a favor.  It always worked; they blushed, looked away, and invariably gave whatever he'd been asking for.  He thought Elder Sister had them catalogued, too; she always seemed especially vigilant when Miroku was walking around with a particular type of grin.  "Did Inuyasha return with you?"

"Hai, older brother.  He--"  Kohaku choked to a stop as Shippou let go of Kohaku's hands to slap both his palms across Kohaku's mouth. "Mmph!"

"My news to tell!" Shippou cried, then tumbled forth with, "Miroku! Kouga's here!  And he and Inuyasha have been arguing and calling each other names!"

"Is that so?"  the priest asked, bemused.

Shippou lifted his hands from Kohaku's mouth. "There!"

"Shippou-kun, you forgot a part," Kohaku said, wiping the back of one hand against his mouth; Shippou's hands had been dirty, with what he hesitated to ask.

"I forgot a part? I didn't forget a part!" Shippou said, indignant.

With a sigh, Kohaku said to Miroku, "Inuyasha-sama and Kagome-neesan were hoping you could meet them at the house.  --That's the part you forgot, Shippou-kun."

"I didn't forget that," Shippou protested. "I wanted to leave something for you to do."

"Thank you," Kohaku said wryly. "I appreciate the consideration."

"Geeze, don't be a jerk about it!"

"Maa, maa," Miroku interjected placatingly.  "Of course I'll come right away."

Kohaku turned to head back towards the shrine steps. "They've probably arrived by now."

"Hmm.  Has Kouga said why he's come?" Miroku asked, the rings in his staff chiming softly as he walked alongside the younger man.  

Kohaku shook his head, "No.  Kagome-neesan just said he had some sort of news."

Miroku cast an eye over the forest.  "And I see no trees falling.  How . . . unexpected."

"They weren't fighting when I left them," Kohaku said, uncomfortably; it didn't look like they'd been far away from it, either.  Arriving at the steps, he reached up to lift Shippou from his shoulders.  "You can climb back up yourself."

Shippou stuck his tongue out at Kohaku. "You're just being mean because I called you a jerk."

Kohaku smiled slightly. "I'm in good company with Inuyasha-sama, aren't I?"

"Heh," scoffed Shippou; after a couple of steps, he dropped to all fours, scampering up the tall stairs more easily than he could relying on his short legs alone.  

For a moment Kohaku considered asking Miroku about the thing with the peonies, then discarded the idea; Inuyasha-sama had obviously been unhappy with how the occasion had concluded.  It wouldn't be considerate to find out behind his back something he'd been so unwilling to discuss.  Kohaku sighed. It had been an interesting story, though.  He hoped it really wasn't that Kagome smelled like a dog that made the wolf youkai decide not to court her anymore.  "What's Kouga-san like?" he asked Miroku instead as the two climbed the stairs.  Shippou had already reached the top and sat there, tail twitching, as he called at them to hurry up.

"In some ways, he's a lot like Inuyasha," Miroku replied, head slightly bowed as he studied the stairs.  His staff jangled with each step that he set it down.  "Very confident in a fight and sure of his own abilities.  About as rough-edged, though probably more social since I presume he grew up among the pack he led.  Most of them are dead; Kagura killed them, which is why he ended up fighting Naraku with us that last time."

"Oh," Kohaku said, mouth twitching downwards as they crossed the shrine grounds.  He wondered what he'd been doing during that last fight; no-one had ever mentioned it to him.  At least he knew he hadn't hurt Elder Sister again; he'd been told of that, had almost remembered it from time to time himself.  He smoothed his features before Miroku had a chance to look at his expression and question it.  "Elder Sister said that he was really fast, and that he stole Kagome-neesan once."

Miroku nodded, a smile creasing the corners of his eyes as he responded readily.  "He did.  He wanted her to find some Shikon shards that some bird youkai had; the bird youkai had been picking off his pack members: they lived in the same mountain territory.  Inuyasha was furious, of course.  He ended up arguing with Kagome afterwards, because there'd been a fight and she'd protected Kouga--he was injured and needed her help, she'd said."  As he walked, he swung the end of his staff further ahead of him, pretending to be about to pin Shippou's tail with it as the kitsune jogged along in front of them.  

"Oi!"

Miroku said solemnly, "It's good exercise for you, Shippou. How quickly can you keep out of my way?"  As his foot swung forward, he made another attempt to pin the kitsune's tail, failing as Shippou whisked his brush away just in time.  "A little slow, are you?"

"I think she's good at that," Kohaku said, brightening.

"Aa.  She's a soft touch when it comes to someone needing help; she even saved Kikyou's life a couple of times."

"Slow, hell!"

"Kagome-sama once said that her mother made her eat soap for using bad language," Miroku said, giving Shippou a meaningful look.  

The kitsune was taken aback. "Eat . . . soap? But that would taste awful!"

Miroku closed his eyes and assumed a prayerful mien.  Kohaku had noticed he often did so when providing instruction on some topic; Elder Sister had commented once that she thought it was because he believed it showed off his profile to advantage.  "I believe that was the point; for how else do we learn the lessons of life but through experience?"

Kohaku privately thought that the comment made little sense in the context of soap-eating, but remained silent as they passed Kaede's house.  Shippou's curled lips and grimace were too amusing to interrupt.

The kitsune's eyes popped open again. "Hey, that means Inuyasha should be eating a _lot.  We'd have no soap left at all!"_

"Maybe that is why Kagome-sama has never tried to make him eat any,"  Miroku replied. 

Kohaku supplied with a grin,  "We'd never be able to wash if he had to eat some for all the bad language he uses."

Shippou giggled.  "I'm going to tell him you said that."

"Do," Kohaku said readily, "and I'll tell him you told me about the peonies."

Shippou paled. "I _didn't!"_

"But," Kohaku whispered as they stepped inside the village-side front door of the house, "do you think he'd wait to find that out first, or after he had dealt with you for telling?"  He slipped out of his sandals as Miroku slid the door shut.

With a glare, Shippou drew breath to reply, but was shushed by the two adults as they listened to voices coming from elsewhere in the house.

"The porch, I think," Miroku said quietly, making his way in that direction.  


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Sango straightened, having handed Kaede a cup of tea--the pottery was her own, gray-brown earthenware with a coppery green glaze.  But rather than mulling over some infelicity in her amateur craftsmanship, her attention had been caught by a flash of red and somber black amidst the gold and orange leaves of the forest.  "There they are now, Miroku," she said, glancing over to her husband, only to find the priest looking at her.  She glanced down; her kimono and apron were clean--oh.  She was in profile to him, so he had either been staring at the swell of her stomach or her rear.  Possibly both.  Sango quirked an eyebrow at Miroku; a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth.  He raised both of his in response, managing to give her a look both innocent and lordly.  _Of course I was not staring, it seemed to say, __but should I have been, have you not given me that right?  He'd had that same expression the other night when he watched her undress, just before they had--Sango blushed and looked away.  _

"Thank you for the tea, Sango-san," Kaede said, seated in the most sheltered corner of the porch.  

Sango hoped she wasn't noticeably red as she smiled at the miko.  "It's my pleasure, Kaede-sama," she said, then walked over to Miroku and banged him smartly on the head with her tray.

"Ow.  Sango," Miroku said in protest, turning woeful eyes up to her, "what kind of example are you setting our child?"  Setting aside his tea, he lifted a hand to place it on the seven months' curve of her belly, ignoring Kohaku's muffled snicker and Shippou's noisy gagging.  

Taking another look at the approaching trio, Sango tried to stifle her own amusement--really, what kind of examples did the baby have? a perverted priest of a father, a temperamental hanyou, a taijiya for a mother and an uncle, another hanyou who had once been a human, an elderly miko, a prankster kitsune, and a fire cat: not exactly traditional models for an impressionable child--and said to Miroku in a tone she hoped was smooth, "Do you think you ought to stand up and go greet Kouga?"  She couldn't be certain, but it looked to her like Kouga and Inuyasha were nearly about to start another fight: the two males kept jostling each other in what looked like Inuyasha's attempt to keep Kagome on his far side away from Kouga, and Kouga's attempt to walk next to her.  Kagome was frowning as she said something to Inuyasha, but the distance was too great for Sango to hear any of it.  Her forehead puckered. Hadn't Kouga said something this past spring about not pursuing Kagome-chan anymore? 

"Hai, hai," Miroku said, taking her proffered hand to help himself upright.  She braced herself--it was easier with her added weight--as he pulled.  Once standing, Miroku, too, turned his gaze to the two yo--to the three youkai.  It felt odd to be thinking of Kagome-chan as a youkai; she didn't act any differently, all things considered.  Her appearance might have changed, and her voice was a little lower and rougher, but she was still the same person.  

As they neared, Miroku stepped off the porch and strolled towards the others.  The last scuffle had left Kagome sandwiched by the two males; greeting the wolf youkai, Miroku fell into step next to him, putting Kagome between himself and Inuyasha.  Sango smiled, approving.  Whether he'd noticed the uneasy expression on Kagome-chan's face or had acted in subtle support of Inuyasha, Miroku was handily forestalling further squabbling.

Kneeling, Sango moved three empty cups to her tray, carefully filling them from the bowl with aromatic green tea, ladling it deftly so as not to spill a drop from the bamboo scoop.  When she uncovered a plate holding a dozen rakugan, Shippou drew in an excited breath.  "Sango, lemme have one!"  The kitsune scrambled to stand beside her shoulder, peering greedily at the pale rice and flour cakes.  

Sango nudged the kitsune's grasping hand aside. "There's one for you, but _after_ the others have taken theirs," she said firmly.  Ignoring his whine, she stood, feeling her increased weight heavy on her heels.

Before she could say anything, however, Kouga spoke.  Eyebrows almost disappearing beneath the black fringe of his bangs, he pointed at Sango's stomach.  "Is that _yours_?" he demanded of Inuyasha, incredulous.

Miroku and Kagome fell silent, the latter with wide eyes.  "Er, Kouga-kun," she said feebly.  

Sango just blinked.  The wolf youkai thought she was carrying _Inuyasha's child?  She lifted a hand to her mouth, her gaze wandering dazedly to meet Miroku's.  The priest was about to burst into laughter.   His mouth was open on an indrawn breath, his eyes showing as much delight as a child given a present._

Inuyasha turned a brilliant shade of crimson, sputtering in a combination of embarrassment and fury at being embarrassed, Sango thought.  "Wh-what?" the hanyou yelped.  

Kouga's glance took in all their faces.  Anger faded from his expression as he said sourly, "Then it's not, I see."

Snarling, Inuyasha flung out an arm to point a clawed finger at Miroku.  "It's the fucking bouzu's, you asshole!" 

At this, Miroku did break down and began laughing.  "Literally."  

Sango shared a bewildered glance with Kagome, then glanced over her shoulder.  Kaede's face was a mass of wrinkles, inscrutable as always. Kohaku looked like he wanted to follow Shippou's lead: the kitsune was on the porch floor, arms clutched around his stomach, wheezing with giggles. "Look at his face!"

Inuyasha didn't spare a glance for the kitsune.  "What do you take me for?  Shit."  Disgusted, he stomped up to the porch and, back to Kouga, dropped to his typical cross-legged seat, folding his arms over his chest.  When Shippou kept giggling, Inuyasha stuck out one leg in a kick at the kit, growling in irritation.  In the wake of his flush, his eyes looked unnaturally bright in his face.

Kouga began heatedly, "I thought he was a priest--" 

"_Delinquent _priest," Miroku corrected with aplomb.

Said Sango reprovingly to Miroku, "You shouldn't sound so proud of that."  As Kagome passed by and caught her eye, Sango shook her head slightly.  She didn't know anything about youkai that would lead Kouga to be upset by her own pregnancy.  

"And anyway, _Kagome_ should be the one having pups," Kouga finished, scowling.  

Shippou, having taken refuge from Inuyasha with Kaede, said smugly to the wolf youkai, "Kagome has _me_."  

"Like a cold she can't get rid of," Kohaku teased the kitsune, easily avoiding the blow Shippou aimed at him.

"Sango, Sango," chid Miroku in a silken tone, "is not self-knowledge a stone on the path to enlightenment?"  Stepping next to her, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and another around her belly, gently turning her towards the others.  "By being mindful of our nature, do we not lessen the grip of denial upon true experience? Besides," he continued, "having an heir to follow in one's footsteps surely excuses excesses arising from excitement."

"But, Kouga-kun, I don't want a baby just now," Kagome-chan was saying, puzzlement evident in her tone.  Sango's eyes settled on her as the young woman arranged herself not-quite-next to Inuyasha.  

Sango sat, obedient to the pressure of Miroku's hands on her shoulders.  The sun-warmed wood of the porch was comfortable, the space cheerful in the afternoon light.  "It might be a girl," she said.  His reasoning always sounded so unassailable, but Sango knew it was more in the presentation than his logic.  

Kouga stopped next to Kagome and stared down at her.  "Hmph," he grunted, ignoring Inuyasha's low growl for a moment before he shifted his gaze to the hanyou. "Leave it to you to do things ass-backwards with a mixed pack," he groused to Inuyasha.  _"Only an idiot hanyou like Inuyasha would form a pack with humans," Sango remembered. __ Hadn't that been what Sesshomaru said when he informed Inuyasha that their group had coalesced into something more than friends sharing a common goal?  In her opinion, Inuyasha was trying hard to be responsible, and was doing a fine job of it, with the rest of them to assist._

"Shows what you know," Inuyasha said snidely.  He unfolded himself and sprawled, propping his head up on one hand, that elbow resting on the slatted wood of the porch floor.  It looked insolently casual, just another way to irritate Kouga, but Sango doubted it was coincidental that the repositioning also served to put Inuyasha between Kagome and Kouga once more.

Next to Sango, Miroku picked up the tea tray.  Sango could see the movement catch Kagome's attention when she flicked a glance toward the priest, gave a minute nod, and said lightly, "Inuyasha's a good pack leader.  Kouga-kun, won't you have a seat and share some tea with us?"  Sango had noticed Kagome gradually developing circumlocutions for "sit" over the years: Sango couldn't even recall the last time Kagome had used the word, even with Inuyasha out of earshot.

Kouga's blue eyes shifted from staring down at the white head of the hanyou to Kagome.  "Since you asked," he said with a smile, sitting.  Sango winced, expecting to hear the scratching click of nails against the lacquer tray, but the wolf youkai accepted it from Miroku without a noise.  Blinking, she looked more closely then nodded mentally: Kouga had enough control over his human form that his fingers had nails, not claws, though she supposed that could change if he were in a fight.  Kouga selected one of the cakes first then found himself unable to take tea while holding the tray in one hand and the cake in another.  He solved this by putting the cake in his mouth, taking a cup, and passing the try over Inuyasha's head--the hanyou growled--to Kagome.

Kagome turned one ear towards a suspicious wheeze from Shippou, then shot him a quelling look as she took a cup.  She set this one by Inuyasha's elbow; he muttered something at her too low for Sango to hear.  After taking another and a cake for herself, she passed the tray to Kohaku when Kaede waved it away.  Shippou grumbled as the rakugan passed him by.  

Miroku glanced away from the youkai to return his attention to Sango.  His voice was smooth as jiroame syrup when he said, "A boy has always come first in my family.  But, certainly, if you wished to repeat the experience at some future moment, I am certain that I would enjoy participating with you in its establishment as much as I did this time."  His features were perfectly innocent and unconcerned as he said this, as if he were simply commenting on the autumn weather.  

Sango could tell exactly when Kohaku picked up on what Miroku was suggesting by the timing of his crumb-filled cough.  "Just wait--" she began to Miroku, sotto voice, but the priest grinned and interrupted.

"Then we will? Sango!" he began, apparently prepared to begin a rhapsody of procreation's pleasures.

"--until I can handle Hiraikotsu again," Sango finished, one eyebrow beginning to twitch.

Kagome's voice sounded a little hasty, as if hurriedly trying to prevent precipitate action on either Sango's or Miroku's part, when she said, "Sango will be having her baby about midwinter."

For Miroku's benefit, Sango pointedly turned her attention to the others.  

"Midwinter?" Kouga repeated as he swallowed a mouthful of rakugan and, missing Shippou's crestfallen expression, reached for another one.  He looked baffled as he glanced at Sango.  "You humans sure pick odd times to have pups."  

At Kagome's confused expression, Kohaku supplied an answer. "Unlike youkai and wolves, humans are fertile year-round.  As long as one has stored food appropriately, the season in which a baby is born doesn't particularly make a difference."  

Inuyasha drummed the claws of one hand on the porch floor with noisy impatience.  "Fuck, are we going to talk about pups and breeding all day?  I thought the wimpy wolf had some reason for being here."

Kagome set her cup down, reaching out to touch the back of Inuyasha's hand with her fingertips.  The drumming stilled.  Sango looked at Kouga; he was watching the pair, too.  Abruptly, the wolf youkai turned his gaze away.

With a sigh he tried to disguise as a cooling blow on the cup of his tea, Kouga said, "Aa.  I've moved the pack to new territory.  It's the mountain next to one I think humans call Kurai-yama.  I wanted to let you know."  Glancing at Kagome, Sango saw her pick up her cup and take a sip of the tea.  She had missed Kouga's reaction entirely; but it was plain to taijiya that, even if Kouga had given up his overt pursuit of Kagome, he had probably hoped that her mind might have changed toward Inuyasha sufficiently that the renewal of his suit would be possible. 

Inuyasha jerked upright with a disgusted, "That's _all?  You came just to--"_

"Mount Kurai?" Kagome said.  "Isn't that in Toyama prefec--province?  Kaede-bachan," she continued, twisting around to look at the elderly miko for a moment, "didn't that cloth merchant say he'd almost been caught in some war there this summer?"

Inuyasha fell silent with a grumble, draining his cup in a gulp and then crossing his arms and legs in a devil-may-care attitude.

_A new territory, with no bird youkai and no memories of dead pack, would be a good place to bring a new mate and raise pups_, Sango thought.  She glanced sidelong at Miroku.  His attention was split between Kaede and Inuyasha, who was glaring at the wolf youkai again.

Kaede said, cupping her tea in both hands as she slowly sipped it, "Hida province, I believe it was, both the mountain and the fighting."

"Is that what humans call the area?" Kouga asked carelessly. "When I was scouting for the territory, I talked to a tanuki who said it was some humans in another leadership fight."  His tone was dismissive; Sango supposed that, to a youkai, it probably looked as if fighting was all humans did.  Kagome, who was usually evasive about how much she knew of their history, had once mentioned that their time was so known for such that its name even reflected it. The Warring States era.  Not very flattering, but at least it implied that, by comparison, the situation was less bloody before and after--so her child, or her children's children, might enjoy more peace than was available now, Sango hoped.

"So you found the new territory, Kouga-san?" Kohaku asked.  From where he sat, the porch was deep into twilight shadow; Sango considered telling him that it gave the feeling of enlightened words being gifted from a remote fastness, but decided against it--Kohaku already had a model in Inuyasha for self-confidence, at least where Kagome wasn't concerned.

Shippou abandoned his spot by Kaede to insist on a place in Kagome's lap.  She crossed her legs to make a more comfortable lap for him; taking advantage of his new location, Shippou reached out to snatch a rakugan.  Munching happily on that, he let Kagome wrap her arms around him as she continued to listen to Kouga.

"Aa," Kouga replied.  "I took turns with Ginta and Hakkaku to look for it over the summer.  They'd stayed with the pack that time.  With the pups, we had to wait until just recently to leave our old territory."

"Are there roads near the range?" Sango asked.  Shippou had stopped trying to make illicit inroads on the rakugan and was playing with Kagome's hands.  The kit manipulated each of her fingers with his own crumbs-dusted ones, bending them this way and that and trying--Sango supposed--to see if he could tie them in knots.

Kouga's glance flicked momentarily to Miroku. "A shrine is on the other mountain; there's some sort of road that leads there."

Miroku nodded in recognition.  "Minashi Shrine."  Rising easily without Sango's help, he stepped inside the house to return moments later with a lantern. Using the long pole, he hung it from the hook above their heads.  The lantern cast warm white light through its paper.  When Kouga nodded in response to Miroku, his pupils, wide against the growing dark, flashed green as they caught the lantern-light.  A quick glance at Inuyasha showed his likewise--and Kagome's, too, until she jerked as if spooked and the gleam flickered out like a quenched flame.

Sango glanced toward the forest to see if something there had caused such a stir, but the trees were impenetrable to her eyes, dark and thick with shadows.  When the other youkai didn't react, she turned her attention back to them.  

"How do you know about it?" Inuyasha demanded, looking at the priest from beneath dark brows. 

Miroku had the grace to appear embarrassed.  "They have good sake at their summer festival."  He cleared his throat uneasily, probably from some memory of yet another failed groping experience.  "Two rivers join near there, yes?"

Shifting restlessly, Kouga said, "Aa.  The wellspring of one stream is in our territory, nearby some caves.  One large enough for us all, and others if we need more room."

Resting her cheek on Shippou's head, Kagome smiled.  "Are you planning on joining with Ayame-chan's pack, Kouga-kun?"

Kouga hesitated, then said, "Maybe after the coming spring."

"You'll eat with us this evening, Kouga?" Miroku asked, rising, and offering his hands to Sango.  The last few weeks, he and Kaede and Kagome had taken turns fixing the meals, sparing Sango any of that trouble.  Not that the taijiya was a skilled cook when participating in the cooking rotation, anyway; but she was better than Kagome, who liked putting odd flavorings in food and then took exception when Inuyasha objected.  Sango had suspected for some time that his sense of smell made him more sensitive to spices; as the summer wore on and Kagome had begun to cut back on the amount of seasonings she used, Sango had taken her supposition as confirmed.

"Aa," Kouga said after a moment, sprawling onto his side in a position remarkably similar to Inuyasha's before he rolled onto his stomach and crossed his arms, staring off towards the forest.

*     *     *

Dinner seemed to be a rather subdued affair to Kagome; but maybe that was simply because she hadn't had much to contribute.  Sango was preoccupied, Miroku caught up in an ongoing discussion with Kohaku about the application of Zen to fighting techniques to which Kouga was lending an ear, Shippou had fallen asleep, and Inuyasha gulped down the rice and fish with leeks with his usual speed, vanishing into the dark almost as soon as he had finished; not long after, Kouga followed, though it looked to be in a different direction.

It was while she was cleaning up that Inuyasha put in another abrupt appearance.  Kagome had, with some nervousness--it felt almost as if she were doing something forbidden--extinguished the lantern on the porch to conserve the candle: she didn't need it.  With the three-quarters moon and the clear sky, there was more than enough light to see by.  By the time she'd finished sweeping half the porch floor, she could hear, over the noise of the crickets, Miroku and Sango talking quietly in their room; she flattened her ears back to see if that helped block out the sounds of their voices so she couldn't overhear.

That didn't work, but apparently it distracted her enough that she didn't hear much else, for, after brushing the last of the dust and crumbs off the edge of the porch, she turned around to go back inside--only to stop short, a gasp choking its way out of her mouth.  "Inuyasha," she said in a strangled whisper, clutching the broom handle so tightly that her claws gouged the wood.  He was leaning against one side of the open house doorway, arms crossed.  In the moonlight and shadows, his hair looked blue-silver and his robes black; his eyes enormous with dark pupils, the amber of the irises bleached to a pale yellow.  "Do you know where Kouga-kun is?"

"He left," Inuyasha said tersely. 

Kagome began in some surprise, "Alre--" then stopped as she took in the scent of Kouga fresh on him, and some new dirt scuffs on his clothes. Another fight.  Aggrieved, she thought, _But__ why? Kouga wasn't after me to go with him.  And--_

"I want to talk to you."

Kagome flicked a glance around the exposed porch. "Here?" she asked hesitantly.

Inuyasha shook his head.  "No. Can you walk for a bit?"

Kagome nodded, consciously loosening her hands from about the broomstick.  Leaning it against one of the pillars supporting the porch, she slid the door shut.  "Where to?"

"This way," he replied, heading towards the woods.  After a few hurried steps to catch up, she fell into pace beside him.  She caught the scent of Kouga's path when they crossed it, but lost it again almost immediately; they were heading away from it, almost, she thought, at right angles.  Inuyasha really didn't want to run into the other youkai again that evening.

Quiet noises surrounded them as they entered the forest: the shrill chirpings of crickets, the soft murmuring of tree leaves brushed by the cool evening breeze, hesitant rustlings of small animals creeping along the forest floor, the click of some sort of bug snapping out from a distance away, the shrill cry of a bird--noises familiar to her from their years of traveling while collecting the shards, but more intense, more numerous. Her ears swiveled and flicked, taking it all in.  Everything seemed suddenly unfamiliar; was the crack of a twig snapping nearby a threat?  There were so many things out here in the woods beside them.  Nervously, she crowded close to Inuyasha.  Accidentally stepping on his heel, she quickly apologized. "I didn't mean to.  It's just--there's so _much_ to listen to."

"Aa.  And it smells better than the village.  There's an owl hunting nearby; see if you can hear it when it moves again."

Kagome nodded, glancing around at the surrounding trees to see if she could spot it, not really expecting to; she wasn't disappointed upon not finding it, and dropped her gaze to Inuyasha's back.  She followed him blindly, concentrating on sounds around her, straining her ears for the least hint of noise.  When it came, though, she almost missed it; she'd known the flight of owls was particularly quiet, but this--it was the faintest of rustles as a weight left a tree branch and its leaves jostled, followed by a beat, and then . . . nothing.  Then another beat.  Excited, Kagome tugged on Inuyasha's haori.  "There! Was that it, just now?"

"Aa."  She could hear the smile in his voice; her own widened in response.  "We're following the same trail another animal was on earlier. Can you tell?"

Kagome closed her mouth and breathed in as quietly as she could; she felt apprehensive, not wanting to be as noisy about it as Kouga had earlier in the day.  "Um."  Her forehead wrinkled in puzzlement.  "It smells sort of like Shippou, but it's not a youkai--oh! A fox."  She thought over the scent for a moment, and added, "A female fox?"

"Why do you think that?"

"There were fainter scents of others about her, and a sort of milky smell. So--though it's odd, I wouldn't think she would be this late in the year--a female still nursing kits?"  She caught Inuyasha's nod and grinned triumphantly before turning over the fox-scent in her mind, her pleasure fading.  She hadn't realized that Shippou's scent was like that of a fox.  _That means I probably smell like a dog, she thought uneasily, uncomfortable with the connection.  She inhaled again, discreetly.  _

She couldn't tell.  And Inuyasha just smelled like Inuyasha.  Was his scent any different after he'd been bathing and gotten wet?  She couldn't remember but one or two times that she'd come upon him in or near the water when they were traveling, and none of them had been such where she'd have paid attention to his scent, had it even been strong enough for her to notice then.  _That's not very fair, after all the times he came upon me while I was bathing._  Kagome felt a bit irked at the thought.

"Here," Inuyasha said, breaking Kagome's preoccupation.  He pushed some branches aside, widening a small pathway between two bushes.  "Go on through. Don't catch your hair."

Kagome gave Inuyasha a dubious look, eyeing the narrowness of the gap he'd created.  "Don't worry, you'll fit," he said impatiently; Kagome wrinkled her nose at him, but dropped to hands and knees and crawled through.  Her hair did snag, despite the warning; she paused to reach up and pull it free, cautiously feeling the twig that caught it to make sure she didn't leave any loose strands behind.  Past the bushes, she proved to be inside a thicket; a small space barely wider than Kagome was tall between encircling tangles of leaves and branches provided room for the two of them.

Inuyasha came through after her, letting the branches tangle closed behind him after he passed.  "This is pretty," Kagome said to him with a smile.  "All secret like this."  A glance above them showed snatches of sky revealed through the interlacing of twig and leaf.  "How did you find it?"

"I was hungry, a while ago, chasing a hare. It ducked in here."  The hanyou, too, looked around.  "It wasn't as cramped then."  

Kagome blinked, realizing he was quite possibly talking about having found this spot before he was sealed.  _You humans age so quickly_.  She could recall his telling Kaede that once, and to dismiss more than fifty years as "a while ago". . . . But he'd been sealed; it's not like he'd experienced those passing years.  She relaxed the minute bit she'd tensed, crossing her legs and squirming a bit to get more comfortable.  Inuyasha sprawled as usual.

"So . . . what did you want to talk about?" Kagome asked after a quiet moment.  She hadn't been able to stop thinking about possible explanations.  He'd been more restless than usual lately; did he want to go off somewhere by himself?  Did he want them all to move, like Kouga had moved his pack?  That seemed unlikely--the village was one of the safest places at which they had ever spent any amount of time.  A little thought she didn't even want to acknowledge lurked at the back of her mind; perhaps he wanted to talk about the two of them. 

Inuyasha hesitated, then said, "Kouga. And some other stuff. But Kouga first."

_You brought me all this way to talk about Kouga-kun?_ Kagome thought, but said with a nod, brow furrowing with the recollection of her earlier puzzlement.  "Do you know why he was bothered by Sango's pregnancy?  That was really weird."

Inuyasha fidgeted, gaze sliding away from hers as he apparently found a sudden need to inspect the grass.  

When he didn't appear inclined to answer immediately, Kagome frowned, but tried another tack.  "You were upset what he said about that, too, weren't you?"  _That's probably why they were fighting again._

Inuyasha scowled. "Fucking wimpy wolf."  He grabbed a handful of grass and yanked it free, as if he would like to perform the same service to Kouga's hair, or his neck.  

Kagome took that for a "yes."  "It seemed like a simple mistake," she said, though doubtfully. 

"Keh," Inuyasha spat.  "It wasn't a mistake."  He paused awkwardly.  After a moment, he said haltingly, "Our pack . . . you're lead female, but--"

Kagome blinked, astonished.  "I am?  When did that happen?"

Inuyasha sighed and halfheartedly flung the loose strands of grass at her.  "You've _always been, bitch.  We're the ones who started the pack, and Sango listens to you."_

_I listen to Sango-chan too, though_, Kagome thought, brushing off the few strands of grass that had fluttered as far as to land on her.  "But what does that have to do with Kouga-kun?"  

"It's--it's usually only the lead female who . . . has pups," Inuyasha answered, his face averted.  

Kagome couldn't tell in the moonlight whether he was blushing or not; but it rather surprised her to find him so easily flustered by the topic of babies.  She wouldn't have thought--particularly after years of Miroku's exhaustive descriptions of his someday heir and the delightful process of engendering it--that the topic would embarrass him so.  "So Kouga-kun thought that Sango had become lead female instead."

"Yeah, something like that," Inuyasha said, flicking a glance at her, his eyes that silvered pale yellow.

Kagome's attention was so caught by the color that she missed the flex of relief across his features.  But when he brushed a hand across the flow of grass as if about to pick another handful and throw it at her as a diversion, Kagome smiled at him mischievously and, intending to give him something to react to that would banish his embarrassment, said, "Was that what you wanted to talk about him for?  Or did you want to suggest a visit to his new territory?"

 "You," Inuyasha said with a resumption of his usual irritability, but without the explosive disdain she had anticipated at the suggestion, "are not ready to go anywhere. Did you even notice we were near a wild boar trail?"  At her blank look, he said with a bristly patience, as if intent on a plan but fretting over a challenge to it, "Exactly. You didn't.  And I have to stay here to make sure you learn."

Kagome stiffened.  He talked of her as if she were a kid needing to be potty-trained--a necessary activity, but something exciting little enthusiasm.  "Are you saying that I'm keeping you here?  That you _have to be--"_

"Bitch, that's not what I meant," Inuyasha said, sitting up angrily.  He glared at her.  "It's my _responsibility_.  You have things to learn, otherwise you'll fall to the first youkai who comes along and thinks picking on a hanyou will be fun.  And after all," he added bitterly, averting his face, "that's what you want, isn't it?  To not need my protection."

Kagome's irritation cooled, embers to ashes at his words.  This afternoon had made it clear; she really _had_ messed up during the fight with Naraku.  She calmed herself, gentling her voice. "Inuyasha."  He pinned his ears back, refusing to look at her.  Tentatively, she reached out and covered one of his hands with hers.  He didn't pull away.  _Good, she thought with relief.  Firmly, she said, "I hadn't thought that at all."  She shifted, uncrossing her legs and moving forward onto her knees so that she could peer up into Inuyasha's face, her weight supported on her free hand.  His eyes were closed.  "I was worried about __you then.  It's not that I didn't want you to protect me.  I wouldn't have been able to purify the jewel if you didn't. You protected me, made that possible."_

She withdrew her touch, but stayed next to him on hands and knees, watching his face carefully.  He opened one eye to glance at her sidelong, so she continued.  "But I thought Naraku was about to kill you."  Her own eyes squeezed shut at the memory, claws digging into the earth.  "I didn't want you to die."

"_You_ were the one who died, bitch," Inuyasha barked, moving suddenly with a rustle of fabric and grass.  Kagome opened her eyes at his tone to find him almost nose-to-nose with her.  She drew back, startled, then sat on her heels, head bowed as Inuyasha continued, voice dropping to an angry growl.  "You made it impossible for me to protect you, and _you died.  If my asshole brother hadn't been there with his sword, you wouldn't be here now, suffering from the stupid wish you made on that fucking jewel."_

Kagome's thoughts churned as she tried to figure out what she could say, what would make things better.  _I don't want to say I need him to protect me; that would just make me more of an obligation than I am already, wouldn't it?  And_ _I don't want him to think I hate this. It would seem like I hated him, too, and he sounds like he's already half-convinced I do hate it. She swallowed a couple of times, throat working thickly, then said, "I'm sorry.  I--I don't mind--being here . . . like this . . . with you."  She risked a glance at him; his ears weren't flattened anymore, though it felt as if her own would be permanently glued down to her head.  She continued before he could reply.  "Earlier--when I stepped on your heel--you make me feel safe, Inuyasha.  You always have.  I'm not trying to change that."_

Inuyasha was silent a moment; then came the whisper of his robes as he eased down into a sprawl once more. Kagome drew a slow breath.  She risked a cautious, "In my time, it would have--would have been alright for partners to protect each other."

"Keh," Inuyasha replied sourly, "we're not partners. I'm pack leader, and if I tell you to stay behind me, you're supposed to stay behind me.  And your time is here."

"I understand," Kagome said softly, feeling exhausted from the stress of the situation.  Her ears felt sore with tension, slowly easing up as it became apparent that his anger had been assuaged for the moment.  Relief flowed into her as she took a deep breath, once more becoming aware of the sounds and scents of the forest around them.  _This is more hierarchical than my junior high school social scene was_.  She closed her eyes and mustered a smile. "Thank you, Inuyasha."  

He sounded flustered.  "For--for what?"  

_Poor boy.__ He probably thinks I'm going to get mushy. _ "For being patient with me," Kagome replied, sitting back from her heels and crossing her legs once more.  __

"Keh!  Keep that in mind the next time you plan to 'sit' me."

Kagome's mouth quirked at the corners. "Hai."  _If things go well from my talk with Kaede, that won't be a problem for him much longer_.  She cradled that thought to herself, a thread of pleasure winding its way through her tiredness.  _I'll have to tell him as soon as I know it's possible for me to do it. Kagome shook her head until her ears snapped with the force of the movement, trying to shake herself back into alertness after a moment of almost-comfortable silence.  __That's not all there is to it, though._

Missing Inuyasha's amused look at her, Kagome said, "But it's my responsibility too, isn't it?"

"What is?" 

Kagome sighed, letting herself fall backwards.  Stretching out her legs--she was at an angle to Inuyasha, and her feet stopped just short of his--she looked up through the interlacing branches of the thicket.  The stars glimmered, appearing and disappearing as the wind stirred the leaves, filling the air with the scent of green things and Inuyasha. And a mouse nearby, who was apparently chewing on something.  She could hear the rapid gnashing of its teeth.  "You said I had things to learn. So it's my responsibility, too."  

"How can it be? You don't know anything about it." Inuyasha said, sounding skeptical.  He was looking at her again; he had to be facing her from the way his voice came to her ears.  It was such a nice voice, too.

Clasping her hands over her head and arching her back as she stretched, Kagome said with a sleepy stubbornness, "It's about me, so it's my responsibility, too."  Feeling more relaxed, she rolled onto her side.  Yes, Inuyasha had been facing her, still sprawled on his side as well.  His hair spilled over one shoulder and pooled on the ground to either side of one arm.  

He was poking a twig at some sort of small insect that had surmounted the tip of a blade of grass; although the activity was relatively frivolous, his movements betrayed tautness at odds with that.   "_I _am pack leader," Inuyasha replied, getting the bug to crawl on his twig.  

Something in his voice sounded odd to Kagome.  She wasn't trying to challenge him, and he had to know that.  She decided to tread carefully, all the same.  "I know.  I trust you.  I know you won't let anything happen to us."

"The wimpy wolf lost most of his pack, thanks to Naraku."

Kagome bit down on the inside of one cheek, thinking furiously.  The news about Kouga's pack, and then her insistence on her own responsibility, right after a discussion touching upon his failure, as he saw it, to protect her in the fight with Naraku--was he feeling his _ability_ to lead them challenged?  She responded with a casual confidence that masked her concern, saying, "They stay with him for the same reason all of us stay with you, and you stay with us."

Inuyasha dropped the twig to glare at her.  "Don't go comparing me to that fucking wolf _again."_

"Hai, hai," Kagome said genially, letting her eyes close.  He sounded irritated, but if she concentrated on his scent, underneath everything else she could catch a thin thread of relief.  

She relaxed into the silence that followed, once more shutting her eyes.  Things had been so hectic over the spring and summer, trying to get the house built, trying to settle into the village as permanent residents--trying to deal with the consequences of her wish.  Kagome sometimes thought he felt as awkward around her as she did around him as a result; so a moment like this, sharing company without needing to fill the space between with words, was worth prolonging--if it weren't for the fact that she was about to fall asleep.

So she mustered up the energy to ask a mumbled, "Did you want to talk about anything else?"

"Your miko abilities."  When Kagome raised heavy eyelids to look at him in confusion, his expression shifted from pensive to a scowl.  "I was able to sneak up on you twice today.  Even if you couldn't hear me, you should have sensed my youki."

"Oh."

"_Oh?_"  Inuyasha was clearly irked.

"I don't know, Inuyasha.  It's been a while since I really paid any attention to it."  Kagome tried to sound apologetic; she didn't think this was likely to sit well with the hanyou.

It didn't.  "You've not being paying attention?  What if it wasn't me, but some other youkai?  What if it hadn't been Kouga today, who's a fucking annoyance, but at least wouldn't hurt you?"  Inuyasha flicked the stick and bug away, putting his hand down flat on the ground as he glared at her.

"I'm probably out of practice.  Tomorrow I was going to talk to Kaede about something; I'll ask her then about what I might do," Kagome suggested, trying for a soothing tone.  "I'm sure that's all it is."

Inuyasha grunted and looked away. "Whatever."

Kagome smiled. "So that's all you wanted to talk about?"

"Not everything."

"Inuyasha!  I'm tired."  She rolled onto her stomach and bellied closer to him, her eyes narrowing to show her displeasure.  "Sleepy.  My ears hurt and I want a bed."

He reached out and flicked her nose, startling her. "Don't be a brat. This is important."

"Mou."  She stretched one hand out and grabbed hold of one of the locks of hair that always fell in front of his shoulders, tugging at it.  "I'm tired. I can't think."

"You don't have to think, just listen," he returned firmly, grabbing her wrist and shaking it to make her release his hair.  His ears laid back, a low growl entering his voice.

She ignored it, retaining her hold on his hair.  "Let go."

"You let go of my hair first."  Inuyasha eyed her steadily.  "And we'll talk."

"I'll bite you," Kagome warned crankily, not particularly meaning it; it just sounded like a good threat to make.  She didn't want to listen; she wanted him to let her loose so that she could go to sleep.

"Fuck that, bitch," Inuyasha snapped.  More quickly than she could follow, he'd slammed her wrist to the ground and rolled her onto her back, raising himself above her in the same move.  Then he sat on her.  

Kagome blinked up at him dazedly.  "Uh."  Her irritation slid away into a general grumpiness; besides, he'd pinned her hands down far enough to each side of her head that his arms, bracing his weight, were too far away to try to bite.  So was his face.  

"You're going to listen now, aren't you," Inuyasha demanded.

Kagome sighed.  "I suppose so," she returned sulkily.  "You're not going to let me up until I do."

"No."

"Fine, then, I'll listen," replied Kagome with an air of martyrdom.

Inuyasha closed his eyes, as if praying for patience.  "You look like a hanyou now," he began after a moment, "but you hardly ever act like one."

"What?" Kagome hadn't expected this at all.  Her brows pulled together, forehead crinkling.  "Act?"

"Respond, whatever," Inuyasha said, brushing aside any quibbles with his word choice.

Kagome's frown grew more pronounced, her heartbeat speeding.  "Am I doing something wrong?" she asked anxiously.  

"No," said the hanyou, shifting to bring his knees under him and take his weight off her. "You're just ignorant."

This startled Kagome out of her sleepiness like a shock of cold water.  Maybe she had chosen to spend more time in the feudal era instead of going to high school, but _ignorant_. . . !  "_What?_" she yelped, glaring up at Inuyasha.

With atypical forbearance, Inuyasha said, "You don't understand things a youkai knows instinctively.  Understand?"

Kagome stirred uneasily; this was leaping right into territory she'd been keeping away from.  She might not be a human anymore, but humanity had still established the only norms for behavior she knew, so she had tried to concentrate as much as she could on those norms.  But Inuyasha had implied, earlier, that she was a liability unless she learned whatever it was he wanted to teach her; and now he was saying that she lacked other things, too.  "Do . . . do I even have instincts?" she asked uncertainly.

"Keh."  Inuyasha looked openly amused.  "You're on your back right now because you were acting like a puppy."

Kagome's eyes widened. "I was?"  She could feel the heat creeping up her cheeks as she flushed, mortified.  _Like a--a puppy, a baby.__  He wasn't kidding when he called me a brat._

"Aa.  It's alright, though.  There are some things I can teach you, some things you can pick up once you're more aware of what's going on."

"What . . . what kinds of things?"

Inuyasha glanced away, then back at her.  He looked discomfited about something; Kagome hoped she hadn't inadvertently reminded him of some unpleasant incident in his past.  He smiled, but it seemed almost perfunctory, not reaching his eyes.  "Youkai things. Dog things.  How to get used to your body."

Kagome swallowed, tried for a smile. "After all, I'm an inu hanyou now, ne?"

"Aa.  Except for every quarter moon."  He sighed, releasing her wrists and moving off her.  She sat up, uncertain of what to say.  After a moment, she ran her fingers through her hair, letting her claws catch on the few bits of grass and such that had caught there.  "Kagome."  Her eyes flashed to him; he so rarely used her name.  "Lie down here."  He put a hand to the ground next to him; at her questioning look, he said,  "You said you were sleepy."

"But . . . not go back to the house?"

Inuyasha grimaced.  "You haven't been sleeping well."  At her puzzled nod of agreement, he continued, "Yeah, well, dog demons tend to sleep in packs.   Shippou's been sleeping in his own room, hasn't he?  Makes sense that you wouldn't be easy by yourself."  Inuyasha averted his face, his tone rather matter-of-fact.

Kagome studied him for a moment, then moved to the spot he'd indicated, curling up on her side and using her hands for a pillow. Despite her insistence on taking the responsibility for her wish with the Shikon jewel, since it was a wish of his she'd sought to gratify, she knew he'd felt responsible as well, even though he'd not known what she was planning to do. Saying that he was sorry, or regretted something, was an exceedingly rare occurrence for Inuyasha; gestures like this alluded to how he felt.

She could hear him settling down at her back, close enough that she could feel the warmth from his body.  Letting her eyes shut, she smiled into the darkness and whispered, knowing he would hear it, "I don't regret it."  He was perfectly still; even the sound of his breathing had hushed.  "I know I'm scared sometimes, because I don't know what to expect, but I'm still glad.  That--that I could do something for you."

He let out a long breath, barely louder than the wind.  "Shut up and rest. You'll never fall asleep if you keep on talking."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

He had pretended to doze, the crisp scent of the tree light on the cool autumn air, when Kagome had leaped onto the branch to land beside Inuyasha, sending the bough of the pine shaking under her weight.  "I found you!" she said, delight strong in her scent and her voice.  

Inuyasha opened one eye at her.  "Took you long enough," he said.  The smile didn't leave her lips; damn.  She could guess that he was as pleased as she: the trail he'd laid for her hadn't been easy at all; in fact, it had been the most challenging yet of the tricks and traps with which he'd tested her tracking ability.  

He sighed gustily and sat up, claws digging, like hers had, into the uneven bark of the pine tree to maintain his hold as the branch shook again, the green needles twisted by the cool breeze.  His claws would be all sap-covered and sticky later, but he'd picked the pine for the bit of coverage it provided; all the other trees but the evergreens had already lost their leaves to plucking fall winds.

"But I _did find you," Kagome repeated, eyes sparkling in triumph._

"Yeah, yeah," Inuyasha grumbled.  Averting his glance from her, he said, "All you've done is prove you've got as good a nose and more brains than a dog, and can use them."  One of the things he liked best about her was how transparently her emotions were displayed on her face; so unlike Kikyou's eternal coolness.  She hadn't looked more than blandly tolerant even when she dragged that bastard Naraku to hell with her.  He shook his thoughts away from her and slid a look at Kagome from the corner of his eye.  Fuck.  Her smile had started to fade; was he that obvious about whom he was thinking?  Hurriedly, he reached out and touched the tips of her damply curling hair, trying to school his voice to its usual harshness as he said, "Did you try to _drown _yourself following me?"

Kagome's rich brown eyes were a little too steady on his face before she smiled again, the pleasure in her success surfacing once more.  "No.  I just slipped a bit when I was on the log over the stream, that's all.  I was bending over to make sure you'd climbed out of the river onto it, rather than doing something sneaky like tossing your haori at it instead."

He sighed with exaggerated exasperation.  "Hands and knees, bitch.  I know you don't like how it makes you look, but your balance is off when you try to check scents on the ground by bending over."  

"Hai, hai," Kagome said quickly, a flush rising and subsiding quickly as she tried to placate him, damnit. Then she bounced a little, sending the tree branch trembling beneath them.  "So I did well?"

"Fuck! You'll knock us to the ground if you aren't careful," Inuyasha said angrily.

"But I did well?  Tell me I did well!" Kagome demanded, smile curving mischievously. She wasn't going to let him get away without a compliment.  Fuck.

"Fine.  Yeah, you did well.  You'll be able to track the kit the next time he tries to hide from a chore, unless he pulls one of his floaty bubble tricks."  She was pretty competent; she had a good nose, but also some cleverness in figuring out extra details from what she could smell, and that was what set them apart from dogs. And since her miko powers hadn't seemed to have been effective in months, her efforts were entirely based on what he'd taught her.

He had thought, for a while, that maybe she wasn't even a miko anymore; but Kaede kept her in the miko's hut for hours every morning, and Kagome said she was trying to learn to break the rosary, so he figured there had to be something there still.  He almost, but not quite, regretted the lack of any Shikon shards with which to test her; but unless someone made another and then shattered it, he supposed that was not going to happen. Fucking stupid jewel--deciding that her wish was the last bit of purification it needed to sway its internal struggle and then disappear in a bunch of fucking stupid sparkly lights like when it had first shattered.

To distract her from his words as much as himself from his thoughts, Inuyasha pushed down abruptly with his feet, making the bough bend alarmingly beneath them.  Kagome, being further from the trunk, clutched it tightly.  "What--"  Inuyasha moved towards her, taking care to step in time with the swaying of the branch so that his weight exaggerated its movement still further.  Kagome eyed him nervously as he crowded her, backing up one step towards the end of the branch.  Pressing his advantage, Inuyasha forced her back another step.  "Inuyasha. . . ."  As he advanced again, the branch began to bow alarmingly under her weight when she inched backwards.  Her eyes rounded with dismay; after another shake she dropped, falling feet-first onto the ground below with a crackling of dead leaves as she landed.  

"Keh."  Inuyasha leaped down more lightly after her, brushing bits of bark off his hakama.    "That--"

A shove from behind sent him sprawling face-down onto the ground; before he could spit out anything besides a disgusted, "Hell!" a weight settled onto his back, smaller hands reaching out to grab his own.  He hid a smirk, easily rising to hands and knees.  A twist dumped Kagome to the earth with a choked laugh from her, and the next second he was leaning over and pinning her wrists to the ground.  "The _legs_.  Shit, how many times will I have to tell you?  Unless you weigh down the legs, you're as easy to dislodge as Shippou."  He glared down at her, hoping his inner amusement wasn't betrayed by his expression.  He wouldn't have liked to admit it to her, but some of the stuff he'd been trying to teach her had been more enjoyable than he would ever have suspected.  

Kagome stared up at him, pupils narrow against the sun almost swallowed by the darkness of her brown irises.  He dropped his gaze lower. Her mouth quirked at its corners, a grin teasing about its edges.  "Legs, huh?" Looking slyly self-satisfied, Kagome drew hers up, feet aiming towards his gut as she kicked like a hare.

That got Inuyasha off her with a huff of sharply expelled breath as he fell to the ground and slid a short distance; the next moment she was atop his legs.  Her own twisted behind her as she tried to use her weight to pin him and snare his feet with hers to keep him from kicking.  Leaves crackled beneath them, the scent of autumn earth and leaf-mold clinging to both of them.  His snarl, given with ears tilted to the sides, neither aggressively pricked forward nor pinned back in annoyance, was met with a snarl from her, too, as he caught her hands with his and laced their fingers so that she couldn't scratch.  Enjoyable, hell.  Enjoyable was too mild to cover it.  It was _fun, pretending to fight with her and knowing she was learning from it._

Kagome's snarl stuttered into a laugh as he pushed against her hands, ignoring his legs and using the strength of his torso to lever his shoulders off the ground.  As he kept pushing, she laughed harder, the force of her resistance lessening with each breath.  "Inuyasha--Inuyasha, be--careful--I saw--"  A final shove sent her toppling over, legs tangled with his as she landed on her back.  Of course, _he _had gotten his wish.  He only hoped she didn't hate him entirely after what he was going to have to do to make sure she didn't go into heat at winter's end.

She smiled at him, her dark hair spilling over the ground and her eyes shining; he arched an eyebrow in response, trying to keep his thoughts from his face.  "I think I fell on some mushrooms. That was what I was trying to tell you," Kagome said, voice still breathless with amusement.  She shifted, arching her back long enough to slip a hand underneath and pull out something, a bit of limp white and broken brown.  Even without a breeze, the musty odor of the fungi hung strongly in the air. Kagome tipped her hand and let the broken bits spill to the ground.  "It's good Sango doesn't know these are here. She'd have us spending all day finding more to satisfy her strange-food cravings," she said.

Inuyasha huffed at the suggestion; he was looking forward to the time the taijiya pupped and wouldn't be wheedling them to go find all sorts of weird shit for her to eat.  He wanted to cringe just thinking about it: not only had she managed to get him to find some early daikon for her, but then she'd wanted it pickled in sake lees, with which the houshi had "declined to have congress," and Kagome said the smell of made her nose water.  So it had been left to him and Kohaku to do something about it, with the result that the house still stank of spoiled sake. He was glad the weather was still clear enough that they could still sleep outside, because now the smell made _his_ nose water.

Then Kagome grinned at him.  "So, tell me again. I did well?"

*     *     *

It wasn't too long after Inuyasha had satisfied himself with Kagome's progress in tracking that Sesshomaru arrived.  A few days later had been the winter's first snowfall; the day after that was when Sesshomaru had put in his appearance as promised—or, rather, as Kagome had wrangled the acquiescence out of him--to let Rin visit for the season.  

Kagome hadn't wanted to spend as much time training once Rin had arrived, but Inuyasha had come up with what he felt was a very clever way of getting her to continue: he just made noises about how much he missed sleeping in trees, and suddenly she was amenable to spend more time on the training.

They had moved inside to sleep when the onset of the snowfall made sleeping on the ground impractical.  Inuyasha had tried to interest Kagome in sleeping in trees--for safety, nothing beat a tree: few people, youkai or human, looked up as often as they looked straight forward--but Kagome had said she moved around so much that she was afraid she'd squirm right out of it.  Inuyasha had to admit it was true; however they started out, side to side, back to back, by morning he was on his back and she had invariably adopted his stomach as her pillow.  

He always woke up first, just before dawn, and would just take in her scent and watch the flicker of expressions across her features as she rose toward wakefulness, the way her dark eyelashes would tremble against her cheek, her eyebrows arch, and her mouth open.  It was about then that he'd slip out from beneath her, when she wasn't so near wakefulness that the movement would disturb her, and head outside.  He didn't want to see the expression in her eyes when she awoke and remembered all that had happened to her--a pathetic way for him to act, but he preferred it to seeing her struggle not to reject herself now or him as the source of her situation.

So Rin's arrival didn't interrupt the training, though there were no trees at night, either.  Inuyasha didn't particularly like sleeping indoors.  All you could smell around you was house, with odd eddies of outdoor scents where the windows let in air.  You also couldn't see what might be coming.  But, he admitted reluctantly, he himself did sleep easier, even indoors, than when on his own in a tree.  He'd get Kagome into a tree eventually, though, he was sure; in the meantime, it was probably better to wait at least until she could handle long or tall jumps smoothly.

Kagome had a freaking stupid habit of wanting to land on her toes when making a jump, so he had spent the morning trying to work her into a new habit through repetition.  "Fuck it, you have to land on your _heels, bitch.  Your _heels_.  Otherwise you'll break every last toe on your foot, and then where will you be?"_

Kagome looked up through her bangs from where she sat on the edge of the well, cradling her foot in her lap.  Her dark hair and trousers contrasted strongly with the patches of melting snow and sere grass that surrounded the well; her expression, however, was not the least bit apologetic; if he didn't tread carefully, they'd end up nose-to-nose trading insults with one another.  Not that he really minded that—there was a certain attractiveness in her bared fangs, narrowed eyes, and back-tilting ears that Inuyasha suspected meant he was just as perverted as Miroku in the long run—but it wasn't very productive.

"My heel hurts because I stepped on a stone too hard. It's bruised," Kagome said, shooting him a glance through her hair that seemed to accuse him as the responsible party. 

Ignoring the snow, he crouched on his heels not far in front of her, crossing his arms over his chest.  "Let me see."  When she stuck her foot out at him, he looked at it.  Her sole was wet from snow, toes pink with the chill.  There was a small dimple in her heel, presumably from the stone; it hadn't cut her flesh.  "Keh!" he snorted, averting his face, "that's nothing.  Only a pup would be bothered by that."

Kagome abruptly let her foot fall, her ears turning back. "I'm not a pup," she said, patently displeased.

"That's why," Inuyasha said, as if explaining the obvious, "you're going to get up and try again. From the well to the shrine and back, run."

Kagome took her own sweet time sliding off the lip of the well.  He eyed her, thinking about saying something of it; her explanation so many weeks ago when Kouga had been needling him was as apt for her sometimes as it was for the wimpy wolf or any of the others.  Then with a whip of cloth, she was leaping from point to point.  He watched closely as she progressed across the meadow: heel--heel--toes, damnit--heel.   

Inuyasha huffed in satisfaction at the success of his motivating her.  It had been accidental, finding out that Kagome disliked being called a pup; he could get her to do almost anything he wanted if he dangled that in front of her.  That had meant taxed him a few times to find ways around telling her that some of the things he was teaching her used techniques and games more common to pups than adults.  The ones he couldn't slip by her—like hide-and-seek as preparation for tracking—he pulled Shippou in on, and told her that they were doing it like that because the kit needed to learn, too.  Which was true enough, though if he had been concerned with teaching the kit alone he would have waiting for spring.  But he hadn't liked the idea of leaving her so ignorant so long.

Getting up, he peered into the well.  It was shadowed and dark, nothing more than a dry well for either of them ever since Kagome had made the wish on the Shikon jewel.  He should have been watching her more closely then, particularly when she began to bring boxes through to their side rather than her usual monster-sized satchel, but he hadn't thought she would be so, so quick to make up her mind; and he hadn't thought she'd do it in such a way as to seal herself on this side.  He hadn't thought much at all about it, really.  And now it seemed like he couldn't stop.  He sat down on the edge of the well, feeling disgruntled.  Being pack leader was not fucking easy.

A flash of movement caught his eyes: it was Kagome darting down the shrine steps.   _I could have done it more quickly than that_, Inuyasha thought, watching critically.  Maybe she was being slow from caution.  She still moved with awkwardness, but more fluidly than when she had been wholly human--not at all like a cat as Shippou had once or twice compared her to.  Cats, the animals and youkai both, were more finicky and precise in their motions.  Wolves had a businesslike casualness to theirs; dogs were more relaxed and less intense, unless they got roused--at which point their fierceness surpassed that of wolves.  

Kagome might be cautious, but she hadn't the least bit of the sly restraint which had brought that fucking wimpy wolf coming around to dangle his new territory under Kagome's nose like a lure.  After he had said he wouldn't--Inuyasha tried recalling exactly what Kouga had said.  Something about not needing to bothered, and then . . . yes.  _It's become apparent to me where her interest lies.  That's what the wolf had said the night after they'd defeated Naraku.  He hadn't actually _said_ that he'd give up; just not to worry.  Shit.  Inuyasha pictured an endless stream of Kouga-visits, each bringing news of some new treat his territory had to offer, like hot springs.  A growl rose in his throat, thinking of it.  With her fetish for water, if she was sufficiently pissed off with him by spring--no.  He wasn't even going to think of it._

When Kagome fetched up against the well next to him with a thump seconds later, using it to kill the last of her speed, he'd regained sufficient equilibrium to know that at least his scent wasn't going to alert her to his state of mind.  "Oi, you'll fall in," he cautioned sharply, grabbing the back of the haori she wore.

She looked down into it for a moment. "I . . . won't go anywhere," she said, then smiled at him. 

"Break some bones, most likely," he grumbled, letting go of her and shoving his hands up his sleeves.

"Hn."  Kagome hitched herself up to sit next to him on the edge of the well, her breath audible as she sought to calm down.  He wouldn't have been out of breath from that run. Was she not that strong? He frowned. They hadn't done anything, really, that would give him an idea about that; even their occasional wrestling was more a matter of weight and experience than out-and-out strength.

Inuyasha felt Kagome glance at him, then away, and slid a look at her himself.  She really was beautiful, with the dark glossiness of her hair and ears, the rich earthen brown of her eyes, pupils narrowed against the pale wash of winter sunlight, the subtle planes of her muscles and gentle curves of her body.  Inuyasha shoved himself off the well, standing in a much-trampled patch of snow which squelched up between his toes.  Thinking along those lines was fucking dangerous.

"Get up," he said peremptorily. "Let's do it again."

"Mou. Again?"

He turned away from her, assessing places distant enough that he could get up to his top speed.  The forest was too close, and the trees would slow them both.  "To the far side of the rice paddies," he said finally.

"Right through the village?" Kagome asked; he was surprised to hear a note of dismay in her tone.

Facing her, he said slowly, "We won't bother anyone: it's too early.  If that's what you're worrying about."

Kagome nodded, plucking at the hem of her haori and studying its decorative red stitching. "I understand."  Dropping the dark blue cloth, the smiled up at him.  "Shall I start?"  Her smile wasn't right at all. It was if she were wearing some fucking Noh mask all of a sudden.

"No," Inuyasha said sharply, reaching out to grab her shoulder as she started to collect herself.  "What's this about the villagers, bitch?" 

"It's nothing," she said, her ears turning back at his growl.  He was not going to let her brush him off with some half-assed comment like that.

"It's just a few of them, alright?  I'm going to take care of it," Kagome said defensively.

Voice rough with the angry growl that wanted to turn into a snarl, Inuyasha asked, "What are they doing?"  Images from his childhood presented themselves to him; he shook them away with a jerk of his head. What the _hell_ had he been thinking when Kagome made that damn wish?  "_I wish she were a hanyou so she can understand how bigoted humans can be"?  Fuck! That's not anything he would have wished on her._

"Nothing really," Kagome said.  Shit.  Now _she_ was trying to reassure _him_.  Some pack leader he was.  Kagome smiled at him again, this one more genuine as she said in the tone of someone confiding a joke, "They just don't think a miko could become a youkai without having become somehow corrupt."  

Inuyasha snorted at the ridiculousness of the suggestion.

"You see?" Kagome said encouragingly. "As soon as I get my miko abilities under control, I'll do something miko-ish and it'll all be settled."

"Miko-ish?" he said, incredulous at the absurdity of the word.  Only Kagome would treat the idea so casually.  He supposed they could--fuck it--follow the wimpy wolf's example and find a new place to live, but Kagome wouldn't like it.  Every so often, they'd pass by a spot where she'd stop and tell him, "And this is where, when I was four--" and relate some incident of her childhood.  And he didn't think that Sango would enjoy moving, either.  She'd really taken to the whole house thing, and not just because she was pregnant.

"Ne, Inuyasha, you know what I mean.  I'm just following your example."

He blinked. "What?"

Kagome reached up to touch his hand on her shoulder.  With a start, he released her, only to have her catch his hand and clasp it loosely between her own.  "Whenever someone has said something negative about being a hanyou to you, you don't try to force them to change their mind.  You're just yourself, and your actions show them how mistaken they were."

"Oh," he said, at a loss.  He hadn't known she thought of him that way.  It made him sound sort of . . .  responsible.  He didn't try to restrain the cocky grin that surfaced in response. He'd see what was going on with the villagers and make up his own mind, but for now-- "So you admit I know better, then."

"Baka," Kagome said, letting his hand go and mock-scowling at him, her ears turned to the sides. "Not about _everything.  Otherwise you wouldn't have forgotten about this run.  To the far side of the paddies, you said?"_

"Keh," Inuyasha groused.  "It's not a run. It's a race. I want to see if you can keep up with me."

Kagome was dubious.  "Oh."  He gave her his hands, both of them this time, to help her slide off the well. As she stood, he moved away and crossed his arms.

"You'll start, I'll catch up," he instructed her.  She nodded, starting off toward the village at a forward-leaning run; he'd taught her that. It shifted your weight to your toes, which was good for speed, and being off-balance just that much as you leaned added to your forward momentum.

It only took Inuyasha a moment to catch up with her.  He had never mentioned to anyone how much he liked running:  the swiftness of it, the rush of air past his ears and whipping his clothes and hair.  As Inuyasha passed Kagome, however, he heard the beat of her stride shift as she quickened her pace to match his own.  Speeding up, they pounded through the slushy streets of the village--and Kagome paced him.  Her breathing was harsh, but she was actually doing it.  He was going as fast as he could, but he wasn't alone: Kagome had kept up with him.

Kept up, that was, until she gave a great gasp and stumbled to a halt.  Inuyasha slowed, straightening and thudding his heels into the ground, then turned back to her just short of the paddies gleaming a brown bristle-studded gray under the flat skies.  

Kagome had doubled over, hands pressed to one side.  There was a spike of pain in her scent, but no blood.  Inuyasha's hot delight cooled into anxiety.  "Kagome!"  He bent, putting his face on a level with hers.  "Are you alright?"

Between gasping breaths, Kagome angled her face towards him. Her eyes were bright with victorious delight, only a twinge of discomfort evident in her features.  He relaxed minutely.  Still pressing her hands to her side, she said, "Inuyasha. Did you--see that? You couldn't--shake me that easily."

"Are you alright?" he demanded again.

"Y-yes," Kagome said, her breathing becoming less labored.  She straightened slowly.  "It's . . . just a stitch.  A muscle cramp.  I'm alright."

He straightened too, relieved.  Then scowled. She shouldn't be making him worry like that.  "Keh," he scoffed.  "If it's because you're weak, you know what that means."

Kagome dropped her hands from her side in rapid dismay.  "Inuyasha, I'd like to see Rin while she's here to visit, not just listen to her sleeping!"

Inuyasha narrowed his eyes at her.  Kagome had been helping Miroku with classes he'd started for some of the village children after the rice harvest was in, and she was spending time working on the rosary, and helping Kaede, and Sango as the taijiya's pregnancy had progressed.  But her training had priority in his mind.  "I know what to do," he said with enough mildness that he surprised a startled glance from Kagome.  He began head towards the house; before them, the village was starting to come awake in the cold morning as white plumes drifting up from the houses' smoke-holes began to thicken, fires being stirred to life.  

"What?" Kagome asked, wary suspicion evident in her voice as she began to follow him.  He led her through the village on purpose; if anyone was out to see them, he'd watch their reaction to her.

"You'll see.  Hurry up. Let's go see if Sango's ready to pop yet."

*     *     *

Inuyasha took advantage of a dry day a couple of weeks after Sango had given birth to put his idea into play.  The most recent snowfall had finally melted away, leaving the ground frozen, but no longer a morass of slush and mud; Sango, with the baby well-wrapped and Kirara warming her feet, had a neighbor's company on the porch where both could watch the proceedings ranged between the house and the forest's verge. Twilight was setting in: the shadows on the ground were as dark as the sky would shortly become; a few lanterns stood ready should they desire the illumination once it became difficult to see.  

"So Miroku, you and Kohaku try to attack her--singly at first, but you can team up if she manages to evade you," Inuyasha said, laying out the instructions.  "Shippou's going to work on obstacles for you and for her, just illusions; but treat 'em as if they were real.  Got it?"  

Kohaku nodded. "Hai, Inuyasha-sama."

"Can we take out Shippou?" Miroku asked, staff jangling as he leaned on it.  He was facing the porch.  He had, if it were possible, become even more attentive to Sango since Tenichi's birth; Inuyasha wondered how long it would last--probably not long into spring, when travel once again became easy and people, including the village girls, started spending time outdoors once again.

Shippou stuck his tongue out at Miroku. "Just try it!"  He grinned, exposing his fangs. "Ojiisan."

Miroku fingered the pocket where he kept his ofuda, looking at Shippou pointedly. "If you don't want to be sealed in your room. . . . "

"Shippou's going to be trying to slow her down as well as you two," Inuyasha said to Miroku. "So he's off-limits."

"Miroku-san wouldn't really do that, Shippou-kun," Rin called out helpfully to the kitsune from where she stood next to Kagome.

With a nod to show he understood Inuyasha, Miroku said dryly, "Thank you, Rin-chan." 

"Shippou-chan," Kagome said, arching her eyebrows and giving him a small smile.  Kagome seemed to have worked out some sort of arrangement with Shippou over the past month or so, Inuyasha thought; the kitsune had even laid off the "dog boy" insults, and without a huge fuss, too.  He had noticed that Kagome tended to refer to the kitsune with "chan" whenever he was acting in a way of which she disapproved.

Shippou's flippant grin faded, abashed. "Sorry," he muttered to Miroku.  

"You see, Rin-chan, older brother won't _have _to do that," Kohaku said to Rin, who giggled.  

When Inuyasha neared Rin, she grinned up at him.  She looked remarkably like he imagined Kagome would have as a child.  _Sesshomaru wanted a human of his own because he's jealous of mine_.  Inuyasha tried that thought out; it made him want to snicker--Sesshomaru, jealous?  

"Kagome-neesan is going to be watching out for me," Rin said, expression expectant.

"Yeah," Inuyasha replied.  "She should be protecting you; but if either Miroku or Kohaku catch you, you need to be noisy to let her know what's happening with you."

Rin straightened, nodding. "Hai, Inuyasha-sama," she said crisply.  She was bundled in several layers of kimono and the sturdy shoes Sesshomaru had left behind for her use.   

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind," Kagome murmured, voice pitched too softly for anyone's ears but Inuyasha's.  He checked her scent--for what had to be the dozenth time that day--more carefully as he moved closer to her; no hint yet that her heat was near.  He just hoped that he could catch it in time.

Equally quiet, he replied, self-satisfaction evident in his voice, "You wanted to spend time with her, and you need to train."

"I wanted to be able to do things she'd like, though."

"She likes this. She's been jumping up and down for days."  He gave her a narrow glance, and couldn't resist adding, "You know how kids like to play with puppies."  

Her eyes flew wide as if she'd been stung. "What did you say?" she hissed in a strangled whisper.  Inuyasha could see her hands clenching into fists, and prudently stepped out of her arms' reach, unable to hide his grin.

"Oi," Miroku's voice interrupted them, "if you'd rather play games with each other instead, let us know so we can get back to our own business."  

"Keh!"  Inuyasha turned away from Kagome abruptly, trying not to show how flustered he felt at the comment; he missed a similarly red-faced movement from Kagome has he took a glaring step towards Miroku, the ground cold beneath his feet.  The winter was only a few weeks from drawing to a close.  Her scent was likely to change sometime soon.  


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

She hadn't realized what was going on until the day she had finally succeeded in removing Inuyasha's rosary.  Learning how to break the rosary spell had taken her much longer than Kagome had anticipated, preoccupying her even when not working on it.  Kaede-baachan had been tremendously generous with her own time, as had Shippou.  Throughout the winter, Shippou had allowed Kaede to cast a rosary on him.  Kagome then spent the next couple of hours attempting to remove it.  Since the spell was cast by another, Kagome's own miko abilities were insufficient to remove it without some knowledge of where the spell's weak points were: she couldn't just lift it off.  While Kaede could, and would, have removed the rosary at Kagome's asking, Kagome had wanted to do it for Inuyasha herself, as a way of thanking him for all the help he'd been giving her.  

But Kaede was a practiced miko, although not as strong as her sister--nor as strong as Kagome, even with her powers so unreliable that Inuyasha had noticed--so Kaede's rosary spells were difficult to get hold of.  Every time Kagome concentrated, shoving aside her irritation at the spell's intractability and forcing herself into calmness, the spell seemed to get ever more slippery, eluding the pointed thrust of Kagome's powers.

Each morning before leaving to relieve Miroku in teaching some of the village children how to read and write--Kagome was trying to teach them math--Shippou would sit in Kaede's hut, flip through the pages of his bribe (a lavishly illustrated children's guide to dinosaurs which Kagome had originally intended to be a gift for the kit), demand she pronounce the names for him, and allow her to poke at the rosary spell.  As long as Kaede didn't say the spell word, Shippou was happy.  Kagome, however, was not. 

By the sixth week after Tenichi's birth, Kagome struggled with a foul mood that wouldn't go away.  It seemed like the baby awakened at least five times each night, _every_ night, and for almost all the past two weeks Kagome hadn't been able to do anything right as far as Inuyasha had been concerned.  He'd started out just snapping at her a little more quickly than was his wont, but for days and days now anything she tried to do brought a sea of insults from the hanyou.  The morning she finally had some success with the rosary had been a case in point.

Awakening not long after dawn, bleary from lack of sleep, she had found herself using Inuyasha's stomach as a pillow once more.  And drooling on him yet again, as a damp spot on his haori attested.  As soon as she had pushed herself up, red-faced and muttering an apology, Inuyasha had sprung to his feet and snatched Tetsusaiga from its leaning post against one wall.  "I was beginning to think you as lazy as Miroku," he'd snarled ungenerously over his shoulder.  Sliding aside their room's door, he stomped down the hallway, ignoring the protesting grumble and aggravated curse arising from Miroku's and Sango's room.  

Hastily, Kagome scrambled upright and stumbled after him, scrubbing her eyes awake.  "Wait, Inuyasha," she said, pulling the tie loose from her braid and raking her fingers through it to make it unravel.  When he slid the door to the house aside with unnecessary force and stalked onto the porch, she followed him, already irritated.  "It's not like I was doing it intentionally. None of us have been sleeping well, and if you aren't quieter, you'll wake the baby," she added, dropping her voice to a rather strident whisper.

Inuyasha's stride faltered for a moment at the sharpness of her tone before he snorted.  "Yeah, right.  You'd rather sit around and have us do everything for you."  He stepped off the porch, ignoring the snow as he headed towards the well.  Without turning back, he growled. "Well? Hurry up!"  Clouds of his breath rose in the pale dawn light before thinning and dissipating.

Indignant, Kagome slid the door closed and hurried after him, her ears flattening at the tension already rising between them.  "That's not fair, Inuyasha!  I've _never done anything like that!"  After the first few steps of cool wetness seeped between her toes and coated her feet with snow, the temperature was something she could ignore, like the chill air.  _

"Then who was it trying to talk everyone into carrying tubs of snow inside so that she could heat it for a bath?  A bath," Inuyasha spat, taking a swipe at a tree branch as he passed.  The branch shook, sending its snow cascading onto Kagome as she walked behind him.

Kagome's hands clenched into fists as she shook her head to dislodge the snow, jerking as a bit almost fell in one ear.  "That was once!  And it was a month ago, Inuyasha.  You _know_ I've been using the stream ever since then.  When it's unfrozen enough that I can break the ice."  Irritation boiled within her; the last of her embarrassment at having been caught sleeping on him vanished like their breath into the air.   The bathhouse owner was one of those who didn't hold Kagome in high esteem ever since the summer: when his wife or his children were there, or if Kagome were accompanied by Sango or Kaede, gaining entrance wasn't a problem; but not only could they not afford to go there every day, when the owner himself was present, Kagome was more likely to get a "Sorry, baths are full," than easy entrance.

"And you stink, bitch!"

Kagome wanted to kill him.  Her heart tightened and she breathed through her mouth in short pants, so angry that she didn't even want to take in his scent.  Her arms trembled with the tautness of her muscles, and the knots in her back that had gotten tighter and tighter over the past few days seized up and turned her shoulders and back into an aching tangle.  She wanted to "sit" him like she'd not wanted to "sit" him in years. She wanted to "sit" him so hard, so fast, that the crash of his landing would dig a hole to the molten core of the earth.  Only the fact that she was growling so deeply that she couldn't get a word out kept her from breaking the pledge she had made to herself almost two years ago to stop using the rosary like that.

A couple hours later, the angry growl that snagged her words in her throat was still throbbing there when Inuyasha finished deriding her speed, her aim, her intelligence, and her parentage.  The village idiot would have made a better hanyou than she.  After his comment that her open mouth resembled a fish's, she brushed rudely past him to head to Kaede's, her fist trembling with the urge to plant itself in his gut as she passed.  The fact that a stalk was impossible as a badly-judged landing had strained one ankle simply infuriated her all the more.

It made her late to Kaede's, too.  The fresh scent of the old miko, leading off towards the shrine, indicated that Kaede had already left her hut.  When Kagome knocked the bamboo door-covering aside, Shippou blinked up at her from the pages of his book, the too-large rosary already draped around his neck and spilling into his lap.  "K-Kagome?" the kit stuttered nervously, looking at her uncertainly.

"Just don't talk to me this morning, Shippou-kun," Kagome snarled, dropping down angrily to sit in front of him.  A small voice whispered to her, _He doesn't deserve your anger; he didn't do anything.  Contrarily, this only spiked her fury until her fingers trembled with it as she reached out to touch the rosary.  "And don't move."_

Shippou leaned away from her, eyes wide.  "Um--um, Kagome. . . . "

"I _said, don't _move_."  Kagome bared her teeth, then summoned her miko powers to make yet another stupid attempt at removing the rosary.  _

Shippou refused to listen, his book falling off his lap as he scooted away from her.  "K-k-kagome, don't," he stuttered.

She touched the rosary just as he scrambled to his feet.  The rosary fell apart, ebony beads and ivory youkai teeth spattering across the floor of the hut.  Shippou fled, wailing as if having seen Emma-O rising from the Yellow Springs along with a pot of molten metal especially for cooking him.

Kagome sat there, dumbly watching the beads bounce and rattle across the wooden floor.  One bumped into her foot and stopped.  Another landed in a crack between the slats of wood and rolled and rolled, like a bowling ball, until it dropped off the edge of the wood and landed quietly on the ground.

She was still watching them when Kaede arrived moments later, a sullen-looking Shippou clutching handfuls of her red trousers in his fists.  The old woman drew in a breath as she entered her home.  "You broke the spell, Kagome."  

Clawed hands tight on her knees, Kagome turned her eyes up to see the elderly miko's wrinkles deepen as she smiled at Kagome.  Her glanced dropped to Shippou when he made a noise: he was glaring at her, but his eyelashes looked suspiciously dark.  Kagome's own eyes filled, a breath hitching in her throat as she swiftly gathered up the kitsune and tucked him to her.  She could smell the miserable unhappiness she'd caused him.  Her breath hitched again, and then again.  "I'm sorry, Shippou-kun," she whispered, rocking him gently. "Sorry, sorry, sorry."  

"That was mean," he said into her shoulder, voice muffled.  "And your eyes looked almost red, Kagome, you were scary."

Kagome could hear the quiet sounds Kaede made as the old miko moved about her hut, giving the two of them time to wind down.  "I wasn't mad at you, truly I wasn't.  I'd never hurt you.  Will you forgive me?"  

Shippou pushed away from her, studying her face with a plumped lower lip.  "Maybe," he said, his tone bordering on touchy.

Brushing her bangs back, Kagome said seriously, "Would you like to play a game later? Just the two of us."  She reached out to finger-comb his bangs, relieved when he didn't try to swat her away, just jerked back with his usual gesture before submitting to it.  

"Maybe," Shippou repeated.  "Can I pick which one?"

"Yes."

"Then I will," he said, with the air of someone granting a favor.  He moved off her lap and stood.  "You should tell Inuyasha what you did. I won't," he announced condescendingly. 

"Thank you, Shippou-kun," Kagome said, mouth curving in a small smile for him.

Shippou headed toward the door.  He stepped out, then shoved aside the reed door-mat to peek back in at her. "I told Kaede you got mad," he added, and ducked out of sight.

Kagome tried not to blush, folding her hands together and resting them in her lap.  She looked up as the miko set a mug in front of her, then sat, kneeling.  "What is the problem, Kagome?" the miko asked quietly.

"I--I don't--"  Kagome glanced away.  In a low voice, she said, "Inuyasha's been angry all the time lately. And I have, too."  She kept her eyes on her hands as she spoke.

Taking a sip from her mug, Kaede said, "We have all noticed how irate he has been towards you. You said you had told him your intentions regarding the rosary.  Your progress with that has upset you; do you think it has likewise bothered Inuyasha?  After all, it's often with him that he masks what he feels with anger."

Kaede must have been studying her face, for just as Kagome felt ready to snarl at the thought of bearing the brunt of Inuyasha's worry, the miko said with a lack of censure that spoke to the young woman as much as her words, "Perhaps you should ask him about it.  It is hard to solve a problem without talking about it.  But you did break the rosary spell, Kagome.  Do you remember how you did it?"

Kagome abruptly turned to the elderly woman, glancing at some of the beads scattered nearby. "I just touched it."

Nodding, Kaede leaned forward encouragingly.  "And do you remember sensing the spell's weak point?"

After a pause, Kagome sighed and shook her head, hair sliding forward over her shoulders when she looked down again. "No."  She shifted her hands to her knees, saying, "I touched it and it fell apart."

"Were you thinking something specific when you did so?  Perhaps something like 'break'?"

"No. . . . I was just thinking about being angry with Shippou," Kagome said in a low voice, shamefaced.

Kaede leaned back, taking a thoughtful sip of her tea. "Hm."  Getting up heavily, knees popping, she stepped over to a small chest against one wall, pulling out a string of beads: another rosary.  She slipped it around her own neck, muttering a word as she straightened.  "Try it again," she said.

With a sigh, Kagome closed her eyes, concentrating, then opened them and touched the rosary, her forefinger's claw tapping a black bead.

Nothing happened.

Kagome's mouth drooped, her ears dropping dispiritedly.   Frustrated, she said, "I thought this was supposed to be a simple spell.  I _should_ be able to do it."  

"To address your last comment first, Kagome, there is no _should_ to it.  That you have retained any of your miko abilities as a hanyou is surprising; that making use of them is troublesome is not," Kaede replied, taking hold of the rosary and lifting it off her neck as smoothly as put it on minutes earlier.  "My regret is that I did not consider saying so to you when you began; I am sorry that my oversight has caused you frustration."  

At Kagome's hasty gesture of denial, the miko replied, "It's the responsibility of elders to share the wisdom of their experience with the younger generation, Kagome--and you are most certainly younger," Kaede said, her wrinkles deepening with a small smile

"I--thank you," Kagome stood.  She tried for a smile for Kaede.  "Thank you, also, for your time.  I'm sorry to have caused such a fuss."

Kaede shook her head. "Think nothing of it.  Kagome, everyone has difficult days, and yours have not been easy to begin with for some time."

"Thank you," Kagome said once more, then nudged the bamboo curtain aside with one shoulder to step out of the hut.  

Shippou was nowhere in sight.  Not yet feeling up to talking to anyone at the house, Kagome made her way to the God Tree, so intent on her own thoughts that she failed to take note of the other footprints in the snow leading to the same destination.  Once within reach of the tree, though, the scent was something she couldn't ignore.  She looked up into the winter-bare branches to find Inuyasha on a low limb, staring down at her with a taut expression on his face.  His red haori and hakama were dark with moisture from where they made contact with the branch, as if he'd sat there in disregard for the snow and it had melted and wet the cloth.  When he gave an audible sniff in her direction, Kagome flexed her fingers.  He had better not say a single thing about her scent.

"What the hell do you want," Inuyasha said, the low growl in his tone turning the question leaden.  

Stung, Kagome hunched her shoulders, already tense muscles protesting.  "I didn't _want_ anything," she snapped in reply. "I didn't know you were here. I was just coming by because I felt like it."

Inuyasha settled back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes. "Yeah, so now you've come, you can go."

Kagome's ears flattened. Goaded, losing the last of her hold on her temper, she yelled up at him, "Baka! Don't tell me to leave. I'll leave when I want to!"

Inuyasha turned his face back towards her with a scowl. "Bitch, don't push me. I'm not in the mood for it."

Incensed, she raged up at him, "_You're _not in the mood? _You?  What about _me_?  You've done nothing but complain and insult and ridicule me for _weeks_ and you are the one who's tired?  __Fuck you, Inuyasha!"_

The hanyou's eyes flew wide as he stared at her.  "The _hell?  _What _did you just say to me, bitch?"_

Louder, Kagome yelled, "I said: Fuck. You!" She stared up at him with narrowed eyes, Kaede's comments coming to her mind.  More quietly, she said, "If you'd keep your sword of a tongue sheathed for two consecutive minutes, though, maybe I could tell you about the rosary!"

"What?"  He abruptly leaned over the branch to give her a closer look, eyebrows tense with a looming frown.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The rosary," Kagome said with gritted-teeth patience, borrowing Inuyasha's own you-must-be-an-idiot tone as she crossed her arms and glared at him.  "The thing you've got around your neck."  A smile twisted her lips as she added, "The thing that makes you crash to the ground if I say--"

"Bitch!"  Inuyasha kicked a leg over the tree branch and sprang to the ground before she could say the word, coming up to her so swiftly that she stumbled back a step as he crowded her.  That he moved with such alacrity calmed her a little; he knew how angry she had to be, if he took that seriously the possibility she would say it.  "What _about it."_

Piqued, Kagome looked up at the God Tree, averting her face from Inuyasha.  "Nothing at--" she began, only to be interrupted for a second time by his low growl.

"Bitch, you've been crying, haven't you?"  Kagome hesitated--had he sounded uncomfortable?--and turned back to the hanyou.  He must be smelling Shippou's tears on her.  His expression changed quickly as she looked at him, but for a moment, had he been looking _relieved?  Then he said, "You stink with it."_

Inuyasha barely jerked back in time to avoid her clawed swipe, the Kagome's restraint gone as she made another lunge at him.  _Twice now, comments about her scent, and, damn it, she had to be the _only _person in all the Warring States who bathed more than once a week. _

 A sardonic smile lit Inuyasha's face. "So now you feel like practicing, bitch? It took you long enough."  He moved just beyond her range, teasing her with his proximity.  "What's this about the rosary?  Or can't you talk and fight at the same time?"

Shifting her balance onto her toes, Kagome dug her claws into the snow and earth to rush forward, fingers arching; he stepped swiftly to the side, a few strands of his hair brushing over her hand as he avoided her once more.  "Baka," she snarled.  Taking a breath, she ground out, "Baka, baka, baka!" each word punctuated with another strike. Rather than just moving away, Inuyasha ducked the last one, sweeping her feet out from beneath her.  Lessons he had manage to ingrain in her reactions helped her to land softly, however; as she easily picked herself up, she gave him a glare. "I _broke the spell. And then I couldn't do it again."  _

Kagome flung herself at him; easily, he caught one extended wrist and jerked, sending her stumbling past.  "Got angry, did you?  You can't concentrate worth shit when you're like this," Inuyasha said.

She caught her balance, standing with her back to him.  "It wasn't like that," she said in a growl, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes.

Behind her, she could hear him shift his weight then approach her with a hesitant step.  "You aren't crying, are you?  You better not be.  Real me--only pups let others see them cry." His steps coming around to her front, cloth rustled as he hunkered down to get a look at her lowered face.  The next words came out slowly, more reluctantly than was typical even on the rare occasions when he proffered a compliment, as if he might regret saying them.  "You'll be able to break the spell whenever you want, one day."  

Even though bristling at the pup comment, his faith in her abilities blunted the edge of her temper.  Kagome let out a jerking breath.  "No. It wasn't that.  I was angry _before.  What you said earlier. . . . For the past couple weeks. . . . You might be insulting, but you've never been mean."  Inuyasha drew back at the renewal of her glare and looked aside to stare at the God Tree, his eyes hooded; she couldn't read his expression.  She continued anyway, bitter.  "Then when I broke the spell, I scared Shippou, and he ran away from me."  _

"You were angry _when you broke the spell," he repeated.  On the rare occasions in the past when she'd implied that his actions stressed her, his response had been immediate discomfort to the point of being stricken by it; but he wasn't acting like that now. Kagome wasn't sure if she wanted to scream or bite him; she had done everything but spell out how tense and miserable he had been making her, and he wouldn't pay attention?_

Inuyasha let out a sigh; she could hear him shift and--move _away_ from her?  Damn it, was that all he was going to say?  Kagome's curled fingers clenched, her hands fisting until her claws pricked skin as she dropped them away from her eyes.  "I've been doing it on purpose," Inuyasha said.

"_What?" Kagome squawked in disbelief, staring at the hanyou._

"Getting you angry. Stressing you," he said simply, wariness entering the lines of his body as he watched the tension curl through her.

Kagome closed her eyes, yelling with all the force in her lungs, "_SIT! _SIT SIT SIT!_"_  Dark earth scattered over the snow as the rosary spell slammed the hanyou into the dirt.  She stalked towards the crater that had made, Inuyasha ground too into the hard winter earth to groan.  

"I'm going to throttle you," Kagome announced in an even tone that belied the rage surging through her.  "You have made _every moment of my life for _weeks_ hellish, and you were doing it _knowingly_."  She jumped down lightly into the crater.  One of Inuyasha's ears twitched feebly.  "I'll throttle you," she said conversationally, stepping on one of his legs, "and then I'll use my claws to __flay you."  She stepped on his other leg. "And I will make the tatters of your skin into a _rug_."  She knelt on his back, knowing her knees had to be digging into him; she didn't care.  Reaching through a handful of hair, Kagome grabbed his rosary and twisted._

The rosary shattered.

Inuyasha opened one yellow eye as beads rolled off his back and pattered into the dirt around him.  Lifting his head, he turned one cheek to the earth so he could look up at Kagome and spat out a mouthful of dirt.  "I apologize," he said to the frozen face above him.

Kagome stared at him, then looked at the beads caught in the folds of his haori and spilled over the ground, then back at Inuyasha.

"Do you think you could get off?" Inuyasha asked.

Kagome started.  Gingerly, she eased herself off the hanyou to crouch on her heels at his side.  

Flattening his palms on the ground, he levered himself up with his arms, then rolled over to lean against the lip of the crater, closing his eyes.  His movements were clearly painful to him, but looked oddly energized at the same time.

After a moment, Kagome sat down likewise, crossing her legs and staring at Inuyasha. "I don't know whether I want to hit you or what," she said finally.  "You've never apologized to me before."

"I've been sorry lots," he said.

"But you've never _said," she began heatedly, then caught herself, sighed, and stopped._

"You've got other problems to think about besides what you're going to do to me," he said, eyes still closed.  He carried himself as if in anticipation of something, a drawing in of energy on the cusp of some outward show.

"Like why you were being awful to me on purpose!"

"Like the fact that you almost went into heat."

Kagome stared at him.  "Almost went into--"

"Like why you have to get angry before you can do something with your miko powers."  

She gaped at Inuyasha. "What?"

"Like how crappy you are at reading your opponent in a fight."

"Wait, what--"

"Like the lousiness of your aim, too."

"Mou! Inuyasha! Wait just a minute!"  He cracked his eyes open, thin golden slits observing her; even through the thickness of the fresh earth-smell in the air she could catch the thread of his amusement.  Sourly, she said, "I'm glad I'm able to provide you with entertainment."

"Come sit over here," he said, lifting one hand from a spot next to him.  At her dubious glance, he added, "If I irk you, you won't have to look at me over here."  

"It's not _that," she said, dryly.  "If I get too close, I may still be tempted to hit you over the head."  _

"Kagome."  

Reluctantly, she shifted over to the spot he'd indicated, thinking, _I still reserve the right to clobber you if I don't like what you have to say. _

He drew his legs up more comfortably.  "Which do you want first?"

When she could feel a flush creeping up her neck to darken her face, Kagome was grateful to be sitting beside him.  If she couldn't see him, then he couldn't be looking directly at her, either.  "The heat thing," she said, making her voice as firm as possible.

"Aa.  Well.  I wasn't sure until the fall, really, that you might have one. You could have just been missing your times because of all the upset.  But when you still didn't have your bleeding times, I thought you might. And Sesshomaru thought you might, too."  

Kagome bit her tongue.  _Has he been talking about me to _Sesshomaru?

"I wasn't sure what I could do.  I . . . knew you didn't want pups," Inuyasha said slowly, his voice too matter-of-fact; Kagome reconsidered the sitting-next-to-thing, wishing she could see his expression. His scent wasn't telling her anything.  "Or to, to, to be--bothered by males going after you."

_Gods_, Kagome thought.  Her eyes came to rest on his hands. He was resting them on his knees, but they weren't very relaxed; the tendons along his fingers stood out as he gripped his knees.

"Kouga gave me an idea--_not the wimpy wolf himself," he added hastily when she shifted beside him in surprise. "But you remember he said his pack had pups this past spring.  Three or something like that.  It's not very many; it's a small litter. One female's.  Only, I don't guess you know, there are at least three females in his pack."_

When he paused, as if he were going to stop his explanation there, she said, "I don't understand.  Is there something important about that number?"  Kagome could feel the movement of his shoulder as he shook his head.  

"No. Not the number, just that they're there. And they didn't have litters of their own.  I . . . I've not seen too many dog packs--they hang around villages mostly, and I didn't really spend much time near villages after Mother died until . . . well. But I've watched some wolf packs. Usually only the lead female has pups.  To keep the other females from going into heat, when it's their breeding time, she bothers them. Picks fights.  Keeps them stressed for a while."

Kagome drew in a breath, brows pulling together. "And you thought--so that's why--"

"I didn't know that it would work," Inuyasha said hurriedly.  "You're an inu hanyou, not a wolf.  But I thought I'd try. And it _has _worked."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Well, it seemed to be working. If I'd said anything, you might not have been bothered by what I was doing, and then it wouldn't have worked."

"No, I mean, why didn't you tell me _before_, that it might be a problem?"        

Inuyasha sounded surprised. "Why? You couldn't have done anything. It was my responsibility to figure something out."

"Inuyasha!" she exploded.  "How do you know I can't do anything unless you ask me?" She turned her head, glaring at his profile. "I have _birth control pills_ with me.  I used them all the time when we were searching for the shards, to make things a little more convenient.  They might not have worked, but they could have, I don't know, toned things down a little. Let me get somewhere by myself."

Stung, Inuyasha said derisively, "Going somewhere by yourself would have been _useless.  You wouldn't have rested until you had someone between your legs, __anyone between your legs. Even that wimpy wolf.  Pills? Fuck."_

"_That's not the point," Kagome ground out, unclenching her teeth with an effort.  "The point is that you didn't _tell_ me."  She took a breath, turning to stare up at him belligerently.  "You may be pack leader--" that caught his attention pretty quickly: he jerked around, focusing sharply on her. "And you have responsibilities.  But I have responsibilities, too!  You said I was the lead female.  You _have _to tell me things that might impinge on me, or any of the others."  As irritation sparked in his gaze, she bared her teeth at him.  _

"Don't try to boss me, bitch," he said, eyes narrowing.

Kagome leaned towards him, ears tautly forward, gaze intent.  She was _not_ going to back down.  "I'm stating facts. I'm not giving orders.  It's a _fact that, if I'm ignorant, I can't uphold my responsibilities.  So if you know something I ought, I need to be told."_

"Keh!"  Inuyasha glanced away from her, facing forward again.

Kagome relaxed minutely.  "So you'll tell me?"  She took a deep breath when she caught his nod.  If stress were all it took, maybe she'd _never_ go into heat.  Right now, that thought suited her just fine.  She let the breath out, puffing at her bangs to get them out of her eyes.  "What was that you said about my miko abilities?"  She looked in front of her again, too, feeling the soreness of her tense muscles.  

Inuyasha sounded rather sullen when he muttered, "They worked when you got angry."

"What?"

"That's what you said, isn't it?" he demanded impatiently. "You were angry when you broke the rosary at Kaede's, and you were angry when you broke mine."  

Thinking about this, Kagome caught her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it.  Every time she'd failed to pierce the spell, she had gotten angry--an anger she had shoved aside, calming herself in yet another attempt to break the rosary.  What did anger have to do with her miko abilities, though? Could she only use them now by getting angry, or was she getting angry when she tried to use them? 

Kagome's attention was distracted by a change in Inuyasha's scent. She peeked at him from the corner of her eye to see a beatific expression lighting his face, the anticipation of earlier coming overwhelmingly to the fore.  "Tell me to sit!" he ordered her abruptly.

"To--"  Kagome turned to stare at him before a chuckle worked its way out of her throat.  Obligingly, she said, "Sit."

Nothing happened, and Inuyasha grinned more widely than Shippou at his most hyper.  "No."

"Sit!"

"No!"

"Sit!"

"Make me!"

"_Sit!"_

"You can't make me," he said, tauntingly.  Despite the dirt on his face and smudging his hair and ears, his eyes were gold clear through with delight.  They glinted as he looked at her; he shifted, placing his hands on the ground and copied her earlier move of leaning forward intimidatingly.  

Unsuccessfully fighting a grin of her own, Kagome scooted away from Inuyasha.  He leaned closer, standing onto his knees to make himself taller still.  Kagome shrieked, turning her back on him to fling herself out of the crater.  Almost stumbling when she landed, she pushed herself upright and dashed around the God Tree.  "Sit!"

"Never, bitch!"  He came around the tree at her; she circled to keep the tree between them, ducking to grab a handful of snow.  

When he moved after her again, she lobbed it at him, cried "Sit!" and then made a sprint towards the well.  

After only a few lengths, a hand snagged Kagome's ankle, sending her to the ground.  Wriggling, she flipped onto her back, readying another kick only to find another hand full of snow above her.  A cold drop fell onto her nose, making her laugh. "No, don't!"  She flung up her hands to try to push Inuyasha away, only to have him raise his hand out of her reach.

He pretended to glower, ears eased to the sides. "Say you submit."

"No. Sit!"  His hand lowered. She squeezed her eyes closed and scrunched her chin down in anticipation of having the snow dumped on her. "Don't!"

Kagome could feel the snow getting closer, and curled onto her side, clasping her arms about her head and ears as she tried to shield herself. "I submit, I submit," she said into the protective screen of her wet hair and elbows, laughter subsiding into gasps.  

When nothing happened, she opened her eyes cautiously, looked at the clean snowfield between her and the well, then rolled over.  Inuyasha crouched beside her on his haunches, hands resting lightly on the ground.  His mouth grinned in silent mirth as he looked at her.  "Hell, you're _covered in snow," he observed._

"I think I'm all wet, too," Kagome informed him, standing.  She brushed the snow from her clothes before it had a chance to melt and soak in.

"Snow does that," he said.  He straightened.  "Are you cold?"

She shook her head, gathering her wet hair with her hand and pulling it behind her shoulders.  "Not really."

He watched her a moment, then worked himself out of his haori and dropped the red coat on her head. "Here." 

Draping it over her shoulders and wrapping it around herself, Kagome looked at her bare toes and took a deep breath, smelling him and the snow and the dirt and his pleasure.  She'd broken his rosary, and he hadn't been angry because he hated her, and he wasn't going to keep things from her again.  Feeling a momentary bubble of contentment, she said, "Thank you."

"Your aim still sucks. We'll practice some more tomorrow."

"Alright."

"And you'll talk to Kaede about your miko powers."

"Hai."

"And you remember I apologized."

Kagome sighed, sobering. "Yes."  She turned her gaze upwards, watching the gray clouds sheeting across the sky, feeling too exhausted now that they had calmed down to muster the energy to be upset with him at the moment.  But. . . . She had to find Shippou.  And this heat thing: what a kick in the gut that was. Kagome held back a grimace when a breeze snaked over her damp feet.  It sounded like she had been a hair's-breadth away from barefoot and pregnant by spring.  If it was even over yet: a half hour couldn't have passed since Inuyasha had been trying to antagonize her.  "Ano," she said, and slid a glance sidelong at him, intending to ask about that. He was looking at her already, close enough that she could see the way the gold of his irises shaded to a darker honey color at the edges.  

Inuyasha blinked, a panicked look briefly crossing his features before he settled on a scowl. "What?" he said, cranky.

Maybe she did have the energy to be irritated, at least.  

"Kagome-sama!"  It was Miroku's voice, carrying clearly from village on the chill air.  Kagome looked up at the pale yellow of the cloud-misted sun, judging the time.  The children. The classes. She felt like swearing again; the words might be ugly, but, used sparingly, they certainly seemed to work as a release for tension.  

"I have to go," she said flatly, and walked away from Inuyasha.

-------------------

AN:  More thanks than I can express to Miriam for the generosity of her time and comments on chapter drafts!  Particularly through the reorganization (more on which below), her observations and questions have been instrumental in helping me decide what to do and write.  

Thanks to everyone for your reviews!  Your comments about the details you liked, those you didn't, and the questions you have at various points have been immensely useful.  

About the reorganization: as I wrote chapter seven and sketched out chapter eight, I found myself trying to split the story between following up on the Kouga-Ginta-Hakkaku plotline and what was going on with Kagome and Inuyasha.  Although the story is (will be) primarily focusing on the former plotline, the set-up and development aspects of the Kagome and Inuyasha angle have really taken on greater emphasis than I planned for in my original outline.  To accommodate that, I've reorganized the story into a stricter chronological format.  Although this chapter is new, I've significantly revised and written new material for the preceding chapters.  For those who'd be interested in re-reading them, I'll highlight what has changed where, hoping thereby to summarize those changes for readers not interested in revisiting earlier chapters.

Chapters 1-4: Minor edits.  Kouga's reason for visiting has been changed; he's moved his territory and is passing on the news of that (again, the Ginta and Hakkaku disappearance plot is not gone: it's now been shifted to the forthcoming chapter 9).

Chapter 5: New and old material, with significant changes and additions to the old material.  Various relationship dynamics more explicitly indicated (Sango and Miroku as well as Inuyasha and Kagome).

Chapter 6: New and old material, with significant changes and additions to the old.  More background given on the jewel, Sango's pregnancy, Kagome and Inuyasha, etc.

Chapter 7: All new!

Chapter 8: Coming soon (by Wednesday, I hope, with chapter 9 to follow by next weekend)!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

When Sango returned from helping the blacksmith--he'd needed the assistance of another pair of hands with more training than his bellows-boy--Shippou was wielding authority in a very Inuyasha-like manner.  "So if _you put the baby down, __we can play a game," Shippou informed Rin after giving Sango a hasty greeting.  "Sango won't mind. It's her baby, so she can look after it."_

"Welcome back, Sango-chan," Kagome said, smiling up at the taijiya from where she knelt next to Rin and Tenichi.  Sango masked a frown.  Strain was obvious in the tension around Kagome's eyes and mouth, and it wasn't usual for her to be in the house this time of day.  

Sango made up her mind quickly.  She'd been worrying about Kagome for some time, but it was hard, when living with seven other people, to know what one wanted to say and, at the same time, find a moment of privacy to express that.  Holding her right hand in front of her face in an apologetic gesture, she said, "I'm sorry, Shippou-kun.  Could you and Rin-chan keep an eye on Tenichi a few minutes more?"

 When Shippou started to protest, Sango moved her hand to his shoulder and squeezed gently.  With a low grumble, the kitsune subsided.  "Thank you," said Sango.  "You be in charge, then, and come fetch me if you need help. Alright?"  At Shippou's nod, Sango smiled at him gratefully. 

Sango stood, brushing her hands down her hips in a habitual dusting-off gesture. "Kagome-chan?" Unless she lost some weight soon, she'd have to alter her taijiya suit this spring: she suspected that it would be a tight fit across her hips and chest now.  She felt a brief spurt of joy, glancing at Tenichi.  _I'm a mother now, and a wife, and my brother is alive, and I have a family again!_ Sango enjoyed every aspect of her new roles.  The expression of wise meditation Miroku would adopt whenever she turned to him for advice or a decision was one of her favorites; and it was so liberating to know the expectations one had to meet and know one could fulfill and surpass them--no more worrying about trying figure a situation's rules and her role in it when not being required to exterminate some youkai.  It was best when people knew what to expect of one, and one knew what they expected.

At Kagome's questioning glance, Sango said, "Do you have some time to spare? I was hoping to talk to you."  She still didn't understand how Kagome seemed so unruffled by all the ambiguity that had surrounded her for years; the only thing Kagome was definite about was not being Kikyou--though in the past few months she had spent so much time trying to learn about being a hanyou that maybe it did bother her after all.

Kagome gave a nod of acquiescence; Sango noted, with some amusement, that the young woman's ears skewed to the sides, then perked forward: it was obvious that she was not sure what Sango wanted, but suspected it wasn't likely to involve a lot of giggling.  The open nature of Kagome's expressive features had always made her a relaxing companion; after all of Naraku's deceits, having friends whom one could read, whose responses were reliably predictable, was a comfort to be treasured.  Even Inuyasha's abrasive temper, even Miroku's wandering hands—they might not be the most pleasant of characteristics, but one always knew where one stood with them.  Or in Miroku's case, Sango thought with a private wickedness that still felt wonderfully new, where one lay.  So, just as Inuyasha's ears twitched whenever a he heard a comment that struck close to the bone, Kagome's had a distinctive way of flicking when she was uncertain about something.

 Sango gestured Kagome to precede her, taking in the red haori the other woman wore over her own clothing.  Had she and Inuyasha resolved their argument, then?  There might be no need for her to ask. . . .  Sango waited until they had settled comfortably in her and Miroku's small room to say anything.  After Kagome had settled herself, Sango gathered her resolution.  "Kagome-chan . . . is everything alright?  You haven't been looking quite yourself lately."  As soon as she'd said that, Sango wanted to bite her tongue.  She'd been trying to start the conversation neutrally before moving it around to what she really wanted to ask, and here her first comment sounded like an ironic one.

"Haven't been myself," Kagome echoed, and fidgeted, her ears moving restlessly.  She'd sat in a pose very reminiscent of Inuyasha, knees to the sides and hands in front.  Sango wondered, sometimes, if Kagome realized how much she'd changed--not really in personality, but in the way she carried herself: she moved like a smaller, more awkward shadow of the male hanyou.   "You don't know how close I came," Kagome said bitterly.

Sango's puzzled expression seemed only to add fuel to the fire; anger laced Kagome's tone when she continued, words spilling forth heatedly, "You want to know what Inuyasha's been doing? He's been keeping things from me. He's been making decisions about _me. Without talking to me about them!  He's been trying to keep me upset for days, all because of some plan he had--"_

"Plan?" Sango blurted, all her ideas of a tactful, circuitous approach to her question forgotten.  "You mean you two haven't been arguing because you're pregnant?"

"_Pregnant?" Kagome said incredulously, ears pressing back.  "No," she ground out, leaving Sango more mystified than before.  "That's what this was all about.  __He thought I was about to go into heat.  _He _thought I wouldn't want to be pregnant. _He _thought I'd mind wanting to have sex.  But he never _asked_ me about any of it!"_

Sango thought her face had to be on fire.  She knew things were different in the time Kagome had come from, but for her to so casually bring it up in conversation, and like that--surely Kagome ought to be having this conversation with one of the men in her family; she didn't have a father, but her grandfather, perhaps?  Except she was on the wrong side of the well from them, and it had stopped working after Kagome had made her wish on the Shikon jewel last spring.  Sango had never fully agreed with Kagome's willingness to seal herself on this side of the well, away from her family. Admittedly, Kagome loved Inuyasha and they were family for each other as a pack, but  . . . well, when one married one belonged to the family of one's husband.  Perhaps it wasn't so different after all._ "But you two have been sleeping together all this time," Sango said weakly, still trying to figure out how to respond._

Kagome, her mouth opened on what was probably the beginning of another tirade, snapped her jaw shut with an audible click.  Her face slowly suffused with color to match Sango's, her gaze dropping to the wooden panels of the floor into which she'd inadvertently dug all her claws.  "We've been sleeping together, but not . . . you know . . . _sleeping_ together."

"Kagome-chan, I'm so sorry, but I don't understand," Sango said, entirely bewildered.  "You weren't . . . having sex, and you weren't angry, and now you still aren't having sex, and you are angry?" The air of the room was faintly chill, the sounds beyond the papered wall panels muffled but still audible.  It sounded like Shippou and Rin were playing some sort of counting game, judging from the rhythm of their remarks.

"It's not about sex," Kagome grumbled, jerking her hands free of the floor.  Sango could see the score-marks and gouges left behind, two sets of five.  "It's about _choice.  Before, I didn't say anything because--well, because.  I thought he might--but it was _my_ decision.  Then today, I found out that there were other decisions I should have made, but I couldn't because I didn't know about them.  And he did, and didn't tell me.  I didn't have any choice."_

Sango said carefully, uncertain of the response she would get, "However, Kagome-chan, he is a man. And he's pack leader--a man responsible for you.  They're usually who make the decisions."  

"But it's my body," Kagome cried.  "_I'm responsible for me."_

"Shh, shh," Sango said soothingly, moving to sit next to the other woman and putting an arm around her shoulders.  "Shippou will hear you.  Kagome-chan," she confessed, "We--I didn't think you wanted to be pregnant either."

Kagome's frustration was palpable even as she pressed her forehead against Sango's shoulder.  "I don't.  I'm barely used to myself now; how would it be good for a baby to have a mother who is still learning who she is?"  _I'm still learning, too,_ Sango thought, but maintained her silence as she listened to Kagome continue.  "But he didn't ask me about any of it."

Wracking her mind for what she might say--the men of Kagome's time had to be odd creatures--Sango suggested, "You know Inuyasha worries a lot about what you think of him.  I'm sure he'd act differently if he knew what you thought.  Have you talked to him about it?"

Kagome lifted her head, but her hair curtained her face too thickly for Sango to see her expression.  Her ears were still pinned back, though, so it probably hadn't relaxed any.  "I mostly yelled," Kagome acknowledged. "And broke the rosary."

Distracted from the topic of conversation, Sango said, "That's wonderful news," enthusiasm warming her voice.  "I'm sure that made him happy."  Her eyes rested momentarily on the room's single decoration, a long sheet of near-transparent paper patterned with the impression of seeds, and pasted onto a longer sheet of red.  On the white sheet, Miroku had painted the kanji for "good fortune."  Sango only knew this because that's what Miroku had told her as he had brushed the less complex strokes of the corresponding hiragana below them: she could read the latter, though not the former.  For all she really knew, Miroku might have painted "Great sex!" there instead.  She blushed at the thought, deciding never to ask Kagome to read it for her to make sure it didn't.  

"It did," Kagome said glumly, reaching up with one hand to push her hair back from her face.  She sighed heavily.  "Sango-chan," she said a little desperately. "Do you--do you think he doesn't hate me?"  Sango kept a tight reign on her emotions; the question was so ridiculous that she wanted to laugh, but didn't want Kagome's sharper senses picking up on her amusement.  _Does he love you?  When hasn't he?_  "I've kept having this thought," Kagome said.  "What if I had gone into heat, would he have wanted me? And he doesn't really, so didn't want me to."

_How mixed up they get themselves_, Sango thought.  She said gently, "He's by your side every night, not in a tree."

"That's just because I'm an obligation to him," Kagome said flatly, her eyes resting on the pattern of light and shadow cast on the floor by the mazelike wooden frame across the papered window.

Taken aback, Sango surmised, "Because of the wish?"  At Kagome's nod, Sango said, "I don't think he thinks about it like that, Kagome-chan.  He's just as responsible for the rest of us, but he doesn't spend his nights with Shippou.  He hasn't spent every day trying to train Shippou, either."

"But if he doesn't think that, then why doesn't he say anything?" Kagome asked, squeezing her eyes shut.  

"I don't know," Sango admitted.  "I am certain, however, that he doesn't see you in such a light."  Inuyasha had to have some reason for holding back this long; whatever it was, action on Kagome's part was the only thing Sango could think of that was likely to tip the balance.  Sango tugged on the trailing sleeve of the red haori, leaning away so that Kagome would look at her.  "So, Kagome-chan, if that's how you feel about your body, don't let him make the decisions because he doesn't see you making them."  She watched the younger girl closely, trying to see if her words had any effect; she wasn't sure they would:  Kagome's arguments about her own decisions and responsibility seemed rather unnatural.  One's father or husband or oldest son decided these things for one, for the family's benefit.  Either Sango wasn't understanding her, or Kagome's time was stranger than she supposed.  Perhaps it made more understandable Kagome's decision to stay with them, however, if the men of her time didn't follow through on their responsibilities.

When Kagome's brows pulled together, a look of irritation entering her face, Sango figured she hadn't said it well after all.  She tried again.  "What do you want from him?"  Start with that: they could formulate a plan, discuss tactics . . . it would be like when her father was talking about how to approach a formidable youkai with the rest of the taijiya in her village.

Kagome's frown deepened. "I want . . . I don't want him to view me as an obligation," she said, apparently not convinced by Sango's earlier comment.  "I want him to tell me things, to include me in decisions, not exclude me from them." Her hands shifted to her thighs, clenching into the fabric there as she lowered her head, saying, "I want him--I just want him, Sango-chan.  I'm tired of waiting and wondering."

"Well, if he tells you things so you can make your own decisions, you wouldn't be an obligation, ne?" Sango said, stifling the urge to stroke Kagome's head until the flattened ears relaxed. It made Sango ache with sympathetic tension just to look at her.  "But how would he find out you want that or--the rest?"

"I--" Kagome began, only to fall silent and turn her face towards the front of the house.  Her glance slid back to Sango, who was watching her with lifted eyebrows, curious.  "It's Miroku," Kagome said with a wobbly smile, just as Sango heard the sounds of the door open, followed by a cheerful, "I'm home!"

"There," Kagome said, with an obvious attempt at lightness. "You should go greet him."

Sango shook her head. "Kagome-chan," she said reluctantly.  

"I'll be fine.  You--" Kagome's voice firmed, "you've spent enough time listening to my troubles."  

"Ah!" came the clear, enthusiastic voice of Miroku, close upon the heels of greetings from Shippou and Rin, "and here is my son, the heavenly one. Although," he said, dropping his voice to a whisper that did nothing to lessen the volume of his words, "his mother also bears heaven within her."

Sango avoided Kagome's glance as she rocked back onto her heels and stood, but Kagome's amusement was evident when she said, "Do you want help clobbering him, Sango-chan?"

Miroku must have received a question about his comment, for his next remark was, "What do I mean by that, Rin-chan? Why," he said smoothly, "that one's children bring delight, and it is within Sango to bear many more."

With a sigh, Sango patted her kimono and apron back into order.  At least she had stopped by the baths after assisting Eiji-san, so she wasn't all over soot and grime.  "It's alright.  Thank you, however," she said with a smile for Kagome at last.  "I can lift Hiraikotsu again, so if I have need, I am well equipped."

Kagome stood likewise, looking down at the haori she wore.  After a brief pause, she shrugged out of it, shaking it out and then folding it neatly.  "I . . . I ought to go do something about this," she said with an attempt at nonchalance.  "Thank you, Sango-chan."  

*     *     *

As silently as she could manage, Kagome crept through the forest--but not on the ground.  Rather, her heart in her throat every time she made a leap, from tree branch to tree branch as often as she could.  The route was a familiar one, however: one she'd passed along often enough to have been able to build around trees that suited her needs for ones with limbs sturdy enough to bear her weight in a jump without tell-tale shaking.  And with spring not yet having arrived, the trees were still mostly leafless: this way there wasn't any rustling to give her away, if she were careful.  

Because of her decision to go from tree to tree, her progress was much slower than the speed she could have had on the ground; but, in this case, her preference was for stealth, not swiftness, even though the pace meant that she lost that much more of the free time she'd bargained out of Inuyasha after he realized that her having broken the rosary spell meant she didn't need to spend quite so much time at Kaede's and could use it for training instead.  Admittedly, the training was valuable and she probably needed as much of it as she could get; however, being here had a purpose of its own.

Her destination was the small territory carved out by a pack of wild dogs just inside the edge of the forest a moderate distance from the village.  While waiting for Inuyasha to show up in their room the night following the rosary incident, as she thought of it to herself, Kagome had considered the situation from every angle that she could.  Sango's question lingered throughout.  Inuyasha had said he'd tell her things, which was part of what she wanted, but if Sango was right about his helpfulness, then maybe she wasn't the only one waiting for some word or signal. Maybe Inuyasha was looking for that from her.  Oh, she wanted Sango to be right!  Kagome felt rather like she was grasping at straws, but Sango's straw looked much better than the ones Kagome had in hand.  And Sango almost never gave advice--maybe because it seemed too presuming to her, or not her place--so for Sango to say what she did about Inuyasha meant that she had to be very certain of her opinion.

This, then, gave Kagome three choices: do nothing and hope that Inuyasha would be the one to make a move or say a word; say something herself; or do something herself.  She was, as she'd said to Sango, tired of the first; regarding the second, she didn't know what to say.  What Kagome wanted was to make a pass at him and see how he'd respond; if he wasn't interested, it was easy enough to claim a mistake or misunderstanding.  Most of what Kagome knew of passes from having watched and talked to her peers in junior high school was along the lines of bad jokes, however; and of course those wouldn't go over well.  This left Kagome with the third option: doing something.  

And that had brought her here.  She'd figured, as far as doing something goes, she could either do it as a human, or as a hanyou--as a dog.  The latter thought left her feeling a little queasy, but the human example she knew best was Miroku. Well, him and movies and her school peers, none of which struck her as ideal models for her own behavior, let alone suggesting a gesture Inuyasha would understand, if you didn't count something as blatant as a kiss.  That was when she'd remembered what Inuyasha had said about having watched wolves and dogs on his own; she decided to take a leaf from his book and do likewise.  

Thus her presence in this part of the forest at this time.  Since the village was so small and relatively poor, there was only one dog within it, an old mastiff who spent most of his days dozing in a patch of sunlight at the cooper's.  He was no help to Kagome: she needed to see a pair.  So, putting some of her training to use, she spent some days quartering the near reaches of the forest in search of a fox's or some wolves' trail.  Unexpectedly, she'd stumbled into the scents of some wild dogs, a male and female marking in tandem.  That had seemed promising, so she'd followed the trail.  Her timing was good--of course, it only made sense that it would be, if inu hanyou and dogs mated seasonally, as Kohaku implied at least some youkai did, and she'd just scraped through having a heat of her own--for she had apparently caught the pair still in the courtship stage.

Kagome paused on a branch, ears swiveling cautiously as she listened for any sound.  The freshness of the scents informed her that she was near a place they had passed recently, and up ahead was a clearing they and a couple of other dogs in their pack served to favor as a meeting or rendezvous place.  Judging the distance carefully, as she had almost missed it and fallen yesterday, Kagome gathered herself and made the leap to a tree just outside those ringing the spot.  The branch she was aiming for was higher than the others, and correspondingly slender; it flexed under her weight and, for a moment, Kagome swayed precariously before she caught her balance.  _Like a giant macaque, _she thought. _Or a monkey youkai_. Stretching out, she bellied low on the branch and positioned herself to watch as she peered through the latticework of bare branches.  With any luck, she'd be downwind of wherever the pair was at the moment--she was downwind of the clearing, but they didn't appear to be present at the moment.

A rapid beat alerted her to the direction of their appearance, and a moment later she could see rusty gray and black shapes hurtling past the trees.  When they burst into the clearing and the trailing male, who looked like he probably had some wolf in his bloodline somewhere, took that opportunity to draw alongside the female and shoulder her into a tumble that quickly turned into a wrestle as the male followed after.  _Why, they're _playing, Kagome realized, taking in the uplifted tails and relaxed ears, the yips and squeaks that sounded more like puppies than angry adults.  _Inuyasha and I have done something similar . . . could he have been. . . ?_ The pair broke apart, the female scrambling back with a springy jump before sitting, then lying down on her side, mouth open in a grinning pant.  _The sniffing is definitely out, Kagome thought, watching the male circle by the female's hindquarters.  __Besides, I'm sure that's because she's in heat, and it wouldn't make sense for me to do it to Inuyasha.  Even denying that prospect caused warmth to flood her cheeks._

_Really, you're not trying to seduce him! Just maybe . . . encourage him a bit_, Kagome scolded herself, keeping her eyes on the pair in the clearing.  They'd foregone the nuzzling she had watched yesterday; now, the male was licking the female's muzzle, his ears pricked forward close together, one paw resting on her shoulder.  Kagome sighed.  This wasn't giving her as many ideas as she had hoped.  Licking was about equal with kissing, on the obviousness-meter; and kissing, at least, seemed a lot less wet.  

Well, she'd watch for a few days more, or however long this lasted.  She should pay attention to some of the other members in this pack of feral or born-wild dogs, too, to compare their behavior to this pair's: that way she would be less likely to interpret aspects of their behavior as normal that were really part of the courting ritual.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Kaede sat on the lip of the well, contentedly silent as she ran the beads of a rosary between her fingers, watching the warm glow of the sun sinking below the horizon.  The forest had already taken on a lavender darkness, grasping fingers of tree-shadows fading in their reach across the new grass.  Kagome couldn't wait until they had leaves again: she liked the latticework of bare winter branches, but sometimes they looked less lacy and more skeletal.  Shifting uneasily from where she sat cross-legged on the ground by the well, she turned as she felt Inuyasha looking at her.  Kagome smiled weakly.  Her senses were already off a bit: she could still catch his scent in the air, but none of the undertones that indicated emotion or well-being.  While it wasn't difficult to read Inuyasha by sight alone, she already missed the more reliable information of smell.  

It gladdened Kagome that the days were lengthening again: the new moon had been four nights ago, and Inuyasha had been less frustrated, if more impatient, with his human self than usual.  She glanced away from him as a thought occurred to her.  Maybe--she balanced on the edge of belief and disbelief, wanting to think it true but unwilling to convince herself falsely--he had noticed what she'd been doing the past few days and missed it that night: she hadn't done more than keep him company that evening when he went to check the borders of the village for anything unwelcome; chasing him would have been no fun for either of them as she could have outstripped him easily, and she had been afraid that if she'd tried to get him to wrestle with her, she might have inadvertently hurt him.  She wondered if Inuyasha had felt them same, if that was part of why he tended toward reticence, thinking of her by habit as if she were still human.  But presumably he'd have done stuff with Kikyou and knew otherwise.  Kagome sighed.

"Keh, it's not the end of the world," Inuyasha said brusquely.  He had sat where he could watch her and Kaede both, almost in front of Kagome.  He had been leaning back, braced on his arms, as he had ignored the sunset in favor of watching the moon, but now he'd turned his attention to her.

Kagome tore her gaze from the purpling sky.  "It's just a little weird," she replied, guessing what he was referring to and responding to that.  She felt a momentary spike of anxiety, keeping a wary eye on the sun as it glimmered through the leafless trees, just touching the horizon. "You won't watch, will you?" she asked Inuyasha then glanced at Kaede to include her in the question.

Kaede merely lifted her eyebrows and gave a nod, but Inuyasha, contrary as usual, blinked.  "You want me to what?"

"Not watch," Kagome said, fidgeting, beginning to wish she hadn't brought it up.  It would just be odd, she'd thought, having someone stare while parts of her _changed._

"Why the hell not?" Inuyasha began with a scowl.  His dark brows relaxed and, to her dismay, he began to look amused.  "Oh, I get it.  You're being shy."  He said the last in what sounded to Kagome like a patronizing tone.  "It's just a part of being hanyou, bitch.  You'll get used to it."

Kagome was the one to frown then.  "I'm not--"

"Besides," Inuyasha continued prosaically, "I've seen it happen to you anyway."

"You have?" Kagome said, feeling crestfallen and annoyed.  Her ears twitched sluggishly, too stiff to move in response.  She thought she'd been pretty good about occupying herself with something solitary at the right time, like washing the dinner dishes.  

Inuyasha turned his eyes back towards the waxing quarter moon. "Yeah," he said. "At least at dawn.  You sleep right through it." 

"Oh," was all Kagome could say.  He hadn't even noticed she'd been irritated.  He could be as observant as a block of wood sometimes.  She had definitely been imagining things earlier, thinking he'd already noticed or understood the gestures she'd been making towards him from what she'd picked up watching the wild dogs.  She sighed again and looked westward.

The last coppery glint of the sun glimmered between the bare trees as it slipped out of sight; Kagome immediately felt her body's response as she closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands, hair sliding forward in a dark curtain.  With the world narrowing around her, it was like being muffled in a blanket or going blind in more ways than one: the smell of the forest carried by the breeze disappeared, Inuyasha's and Kaede's scents vanished from her horizon, even the odor of miso lingering on her hands from preparing dinner faded.  The birds calling to each other in the forest became mute, the buzz of a bee fly whispered away, even the steady pulse and tired throb of Inuyasha's and Kaede's heartbeats fell into silence while her own quickened, thudding inside her chest.  

Kagome let her hands fall when her heart slowed, and took a breath, fumbling for the bow and arrows she'd placed on the ground at her side when she sat.  It felt odd when her fingertips brushed against them--the length of her claws meant that she touched things more with the pads of her fingers than the tips.  In a quick flash of apprehension, she looked at Inuyasha then Kaede; they were both still there, and Kagome relaxed.  It was almost as if they'd died in the quiet, though as she adjusted she caught a crow's harsh caw overhead as it made belatedly for its roost.  Kaede had stood up; Inuyasha was watching her steadily.  "Well."  The sky already appeared a lot darker, though still pale with the encroaching blues of twilight.  But though her other senses had dulled, one had grown with the waning of her hanyou blood: she could clearly feel Inuyasha's youki once again, and Shippou's and Kirara's as well, fainter and more distant.  Kagome searched for something light to say, settling on a weak, "Now it feels like old times."  Inuyasha snorted, straightening as he crossed his arms.

"Kagome, why don't you try one of the arrows first," Kaede said.

Kagome looked around, mouth turning down thoughtfully at the corners as she evaluated what was within her range.  "I'll aim for that tree, then," she said, standing and indicating one forked prominently with the tip of her bow.  She nocked the arrow, drawing the bowstring even with her ear in a smooth motion, aimed a little higher than the fork because the arrow would fall as it was released, and a little to the left because she always shot her arrows too far to the right.  _Purify_, she thought, and released.  Light, obvious even to Kaede and Inuyasha, blossomed at the tip of the arrow as it sped towards, then past the tree.

Inuyasha muffled what sounded like a snorting laugh by turning his face into his shoulder.  Kagome glared at him.  "It's been months since I had to shoot a bow, okay?"

The hanyou nodded as if agreeing.  "It's a good thing you don't need one to hunt anymore."  Kagome almost nodded herself before catching the implications of his statement.  She settled for continuing to glare; like this, she couldn't even growl at him.

"Inuyasha," Kaede said reprovingly. "Kagome, was that difficult?"

Turning to the elderly miko, Kagome shook her head.  "No, I just focused like I always have."

"Hm."  Kaede slipped the fingers of her hands into the dangling loop of the rosary, holding it wide and dropping it over Inuyasha's neck before the hanyou had a chance to jerk out of the way, then activating it herself with a "Sit."

"Shit!" Inuyasha cursed as the rosary pulled him down for the inevitable meeting with the earth.  "Babaa, you have a death wish?" he snarled as soon as the rosary released him enough to permit him to lever himself up from the ground.  He tried jerking the beads over his head, only to have the spell hold the rosary back as usual.  "Kagome, take them off. Now," he said in a growl.

Kagome knelt next to him, setting the bow aside.  "What do I have to do?"

"Approach it the same way you did last time," Kaede suggested, unfazed by Inuyasha's anger.

Kagome frowned with concentration then reached out to touch the beads.  Nothing happened; she picked them up, touching them more firmly.  The beads stayed in place.  But before she could let go, Inuyasha grabbed her wrist and jerked it up; the rosary followed after and over his head.  "Ah!" she exclaimed, amazed that the beads hadn't burst apart or exploded into the dark as they had the last times.  _Is that all there was to it?  Could I have removed them that easily, all along?_

Snatching the rosary from her, Inuyasha sprang to his feet.  "Fuck!" he spat, eyes narrowed on Kaede.  "Never again, babaa, understand?"   

Unruffled, Kaede said, "It won't be necessary, Inuyasha.  It has served its purpose and told me what I wanted to know."

"Fuck that!"  Inuyasha grasped the rosary in his hands and tugged, easily snapping the string that held the beads together.  A few pattered into the ground at his feet; the rest he flung into the night, his ears laid back.  

"Inuyasha," Kagome said, standing as well.  Her brows pinched together as she looked at him.  Without replying, Inuyasha grabbed Tetsusaiga from where he'd left it on the ground and stalked off--towards the God Tree, Kagome thought. 

"Kaede-bachan," Kagome said, taking a step after the hanyou then twisting to look back at the old woman.

Kaede knelt stiffly, picking up Kagome's discarded bow and quiver of arrows.  "Go after him, Kagome.  But you understand now, do you not?  You still have your miko abilities, but being a hanyou interferes with them, maybe restrains them.  Or," her glance flicked after the path Inuyasha had taken; to both their eyes, however, he was gone in the darkness, "it's the other way around."

Kagome followed her gaze, then turned to the elderly miko. "Yes, Kaede-bachan."  She darted another glance in the direction Inuyasha had gone in, took a second step forward, then looked back once more.  "Thank you," she said, giving a quick bow before running after Inuyasha.  The quarter moon provided only weak light; she kept her eyes on the ground as she ran, feeling for Inuyasha's youki.  _I hope he stopped at the God Tree.  I won't be able to see if he went into the forest._

*     *     *

 "Come on, but quietly," Miroku emphasized, helping Sango to hurry up the shrine steps with a hand to her elbow.  His comment was primarily directed at a snickering Shippou: Sango knew well the necessity of silence, Kohaku was uneasy and mute in voice and movement as a result, and Rin was nearly speechless with wide-eyed curiosity. 

"You used to do this all the time to Inuyasha-sama and Kagome-neechan?" she asked, glancing to Sango for corroboration.

Sango confirmed this with a nod, adding, "And they did it to us," as she accepted Miroku's hands to help her steady herself as she left the shrine steps for the concealment of the surrounding brush.  Her own were grimy from soot; Sango had been interrupted assisting the blacksmith, with Rin to watch over Tenichi--who had hastily been left in a neighbor's care--while leaving Kohaku free to practice.  

"That is why," Miroku said in a whisper, Shippou leaping nimbly to a spot free of leaves or twigs, "we're doing this now.  It's perfectly justified."  Indeed it was.  Miroku had been convinced for a long time that he had missed several good opportunities to let his hands wander along Sango's delightful curves thanks to her awareness of observation by their nosy fellow-travelers, not to mention actual interruptions from them.  It was, in consequence, only right and proper that they should reciprocate as the occasion presented itself.

After Kohaku assisted Rin over the edge of the stairs, they followed Shippou's instructions, slowly working their way towards a place where, concealed by a thick stand of trees and brush just beginning to bud with leaves, they had a vantage of the God Tree--and, more importantly, of a certain lower limb that was the preferred resting-point of a white-haired hanyou. 

The present surveillance attempt had its roots in the day Miroku had learned that Kagome had broken the rosary.  It had been obvious, when he returned home, that she and Sango had been having a talk:  one of those intense, discuss-your-feelings sort of conversations Miroku knew Sango would never reveal the details of in this life.  And having seen Kagome's face after she arrived at the old hut they used as teaching space--its previous occupant, may her next life be free from cares, had died the previous winter without family to care for her grave or inherit her house--Miroku knew that conversation, and whatever argument had occasioned it, revolved around the relationship of the two hanyou.  

That had been enough for him to request that Shippou trail Kagome for the next couple of weeks (with Kohaku a reluctant back-up keeping tabs on Inuyasha); but it had been Miroku's observation of their habits that provided confirmation of his guesses.  Something had definitely changed.

It was clear that nothing had been said outright: it was all in small details like the narrowed distance between the two at mealtimes.  Instead of sitting just far enough apart to make it evident that they weren't together, the space between the two had closed until shoulders almost brushed.  Miroku had experimented for a couple of the meals he made by arranging their bowls and plates a little further apart than usual--and had then caught Kagome circumspectly edging hers closer to Inuyasha's as she reached for her chopsticks or her cup.  And two or three times Miroku had noticed an accidental nudge from Kagome be repeated more forcefully until Inuyasha reciprocated, initiating a silent exchange that continued until one or the other would move out of the path of an incoming nudge and send the other jerking back to avoid sprawling ignominiously in front of everyone.  Inuyasha had, every time, been holding his rice bowl up in such a way that it obscured his expression; but the quirk at the corners of Kagome's mouth and her lowered eyes were eloquent.

Once done rushing through the evening meal, it was Inuyasha's habit to disappear outside once more, regardless of the weather.  Not long after Kagome had begun to follow him in those disappearances, the wary looks Inuyasha had favored her with since she broke the rosary were replaced by bemusement.  That had, in the past couple of days, transmuted into a dazed thoughtfulness Miroku was unaccustomed to seeing in the hanyou's features.  No explosion of temper or brazen ridicule followed, however; instead, when Kagome wasn't looking, Miroku saw Inuyasha giving her the faintest of uncertain grins: they bordered, occasionally, on smirks, as if Inuyasha suspected some joke of which Kagome was unaware.  Miroku had never known Inuyasha to make a joke, however; the hanyou was so painfully direct in most circumstances that Miroku was having a hard time figuring out what all this meant, though he could guess how it was going to play out.  

So he merely had Shippou trail Kagome whenever possible, which was what had led them all here today.  Miroku hoped that nothing untoward happened anytime soon in the house he'd been blessing; he rather suspected he'd dropped a few syllables from his chant when Shippou had come charging up, nearly bursting with his news.  Of course, if something did and the family complained, he could claim that they had only paid for a small blessing, and it was the fault of a bigger spirit, which needed an expensive exorcism. . . . Miroku bet he could get quite a bit from them with that plan.

"Here," Shippou whispered, climbing up a tree until he was just barely above the cover provided by the undergrowth.  "We're downwind. They shouldn't be able to smell us.  But we can't get any closer."

They all froze as one when a flock of crows lifted into the air from the forest past the God Tree, but relaxed as the commotion didn't appear to disturb the two on whom they were focused.  The crows settled back into their roosts, cawing agitatedly at another--no, it was a raven, Miroku decided as the bird avoided the crows, coming closer.  A movement at the tree caught his eye, causing him to snap his gaze back to the pair there before he could miss something important.

Kagome had made a leap for the branch of the God Tree on which Inuyasha had been lounging; when she arrived, he'd sat up, watching her scramble to keep her balance as she joined him on the limb.  Regretting that this put her back to them, Miroku could see the pale gashes in the bark where her toes had fought for purchase.  Inuyasha's mouth moved as he said something to her.

"But we can't hear them?" Rin asked in a plaintive whisper from where she crouched behind the thick, knotty base of a fallen tree.

"I could go--" Shippou began before breaking off with a muffled exclamation, slapping a small hand to his neck in a gesture only too familiar.  A faint noise arose; when he opened his palm, it was the flea who replied.

"I am only too glad to know that I have arrived in time to hear Inuyasha-sama declare his affections!" Myouga wheezed.  Responding to Rin's question, he said, "Alas, I am afraid that if we could hear them, they would know we were here."

"I bet I could go closer," Shippou finished, shaking the flea off his hand with a scowl, then shifting eagerly on his perch.

Kohaku grabbed the kitsune's tail before he could move, holding him in place.  "You'll stay here."

"Myouga-sama," Miroku said in as quiet a voice as he could manage, "you knew this was going to happen?"

The flea made his way to the tip of a branch, then sat where he could watch Inuyasha and Kagome, crossing several of his arms. "Of course. I always stay informed of Inuyasha-sama's activities."

Miroku caught Sango's doubtful glance and shake of her head.  "How did you hear of it, Myouga-jii?" she asked, flicking her glance between the flea and the two on the branch of the God Tree.

"Ne," said Myouga.  "Have you seen any fleas hereabout?"  

The eyes of Miroku's wife widened in comprehension before they narrowed on the elderly figure of the flea.  "You've been gone all winter because you were hiding from that flea-baasan," Sango accused.

"Not-not at all," Myouga disclaimed in haste. "I meant nothing more than that is how I hear--"

"Hist!" Miroku whispered sharply to catch their attention, jerking his head towards the tree.

Kagome and Inuyasha seemed to have made a habit of hesitating over touch, in the years Miroku had known them.  It wasn't as though it never happened: if the need was such, Inuyasha would carry her or any of them; if he was hurt, Kagome would tend to the injury as best she could.  But outside of those circumstances, actual physical contact between the two was rare.  Miroku considered himself something of a connoisseur of touch.  He had spent years experimenting with the variety of ways and means by which one could express tactile appreciation of another; if words were needed to smooth the way, he had words. If subtlety was needed, he had it at his command.  The study was a challenging one, with successes as rare and treasured as jewels, which is why he had paid attention to noticing how others approached it; after all, wasn't instruction by example the most praised form of learning?  Kagome, he knew, was not averse to touching.  Just watching her around Shippou--or, more recently, with Tenichi--made that plain.  Her touches were casual, affectionate, her embraces thoughtfully given, her demeanor restful when holding Shippou or cradling the baby until he fell asleep.

Inuyasha, on the other hand, held himself aloof, as if to touch was to open oneself to danger, or at least a threat.  His enveloping robes might be a nod to fashion and his breeding--sleeves draping past the hands was way of indicating one was noble enough that one had servants to handle most necessary tasks, rendering hand-work unneeded--but they were also another way of keeping himself to himself, a barrier of cloth between Inuyasha and casual contact.  Kagome had appeared to accept that, whether knowingly or instinctually.  Consequently, when Kagome reached out and laid her hands on Inuyasha's shoulders, Miroku could see that she placed them there tenuously, with all the hesitance of a moth circling a flame.  

"Oh, this is good!" Sango breathed, a delighted smile brightening her face.  She leaned forward.  "Say something, Kagome-chan!"

They were all surprised by Inuyasha's laughter. 

*     *     *

Kagome jerked her hands away as if burned.  Staring at Inuyasha in disbelief, her ears flattened back. Mortification swept crimson across her face, but as he continued to snicker, head bowed and eyes closed, her features paled and mouth tightened to a thin line, anger rising in her.  He wasn't laughing at her--the sound was that of amusement, not ridicule--but he had no business to be laughing at all.  Eyes narrowed, she shifted her weight and kicked out a foot, shoving him off the branch.

Landing flat on his back in the spring thaw-softened earth managed to shake the laughter out of him.  Kagome glared from where she still sat in the God Tree.  She held tight to the anger, because, she had just realized, she otherwise didn't know what to say.  She'd planned her response to a 'no,' hoped for a 'yes,' but dealing with the current situation hadn't entered her mind at all.

Inuyasha picked himself up and looked at her.  He wasn't smiling, but the amusement was still obvious in his voice.  "Kagome."

A growl was rising in her throat, but rather than give voice to it, she simply spat out a "baka" before turning her back on him.  She felt nauseated beneath the anger, spasmodically digging her claws into the bark of the tree limb.  Her mind kept approaching the situation before her thoughts shied away, able to think nothing beyond, _What__ next? as if waiting for an axe to descend.  Kagome desperately regretted ever having decided to do something, if this is what it came to. A laugh._

The branch moved beneath them as Inuyasha landed lightly by her; Kagome hunched her shoulders in unhappy response.  A hand then touched her head, sliding down her hair in an awkward stroke; awkward, but not tentative.  She tried to ignore how pleasant it felt, keeping her ears flat in evident displeasure.  The hand came to rest on one of her shoulders, joined a moment later by another hand on her opposite shoulder.

Kagome's breath caught in her throat: it was the same gesture she'd offered Inuyasha minutes before.  She snapped a glance over her shoulder at him.  He caught her gaze directly and shifted, sliding his hold along her arms and forward; stupefied, she loosed her grasp on the tree limb as he slipped his hands over hers.  Kagome looked down at them, the length of his fingers twined with hers, and felt the press of his chin on her shoulder.  

Her ears relaxed; she listened to their breathing before she ventured a quiet, "But you--"

Inuyasha's voice sounded deeper to her through their contact, its roughness taking on a darker timbre.  "You shouldn't be surprised, when you've been treating me all week like _I_ was the bitch."

*     *     *

The sound of a loud "hokke-kyo" not far beyond the thicket woke Kagome in the morning, her head pillowed on hands, stomach to the ground: a nightingale greeting the new season.  A weight was pressing into the small of her back.  Craning her neck, she tried to peer over her shoulder; she wasn't flexible enough, but the length of red-clad legs stretching to her side and a spill of white hair was ample answer.

She swept her gaze forward again, biting on her lower lip to hold back what she knew would be a silly grin.  Yesterday had been--and last night--Kagome vaguely remembered something about Myouga having returned, and Sango had burned the fish again, but it was all a daze.  She'd not really been able to focus on anything beyond the fact that she had--and Inuyasha had--

"Since you're awake, you could at least say good morning," Inuyasha said, though his voice lacked the customary grumble that accompanied a complaint.  The weight of his head on her back disappeared, the sound of rustling cloth accompanying it.  

Kagome pushed herself up, turning to look at him.  The pale dawn light easily found its way through the thicket branches, only beginning to show their leaf-buds, and threw a tracery of shadows over them both.  There were a couple twigs snarled into the white mass of Inuyasha's hair, but he wasn't trying to jerk them out; he was looking at her.

"I thought you were asleep," she explained, fighting to keep his gaze without reddening.  He didn't look the least bit uncomfortable--because he'd guessed all week long what was on her mind, the baka, while she was still getting used to knowing that he felt similarly.  "Because you were still here," she said quickly, dropping her eyes after all while she pulled the tie loose from the end of her hair and started unwinding the braid by means of slipping her fingers through it and tugging them downwards. 

"I wanted to stay."  

Kagome's fingers tangled in her braid and came to a stop as she looked at him. She'd started putting her hair that way for the night back in the fall because it minimized the amount of leaf and twigs that would get caught in it, but right now that advantage seemed rather distant.  Drawing a breath, she smiled. "Good morning."  She pulled once, then jerked her hand free of the knotted remnants of the braid.  

"Keh," Inuyasha said in a took-you-long-enough tone, before continuing irritably, "Does it do that every morning?  Oi, stop messing with it and let me look."  

After she shifted to sit in front of him, he lifted her braid off her shoulder and looked at it, before beginning to pick at it carefully with his claws.  This close, she didn't have to inhale at all to catch his scent.  He smelled like the God Tree, probably from hanging out in it so much, and musky through that.  She thought about the way the wild dogs had licked each other's muzzles.  Kagome reached out hesitantly and teased the two twigs and a leaf from his hair.  "I want a good-morning, too."

"Good morning," Inuyasha said, dropping his handful of her untangled hair and rocking back onto his heels, the thicket being too close in which to stand.  "Demanding bitch," he added, one corner of his mouth turning up.

Kagome grinned in reply, feeling as if a weight had lifted from her chest for the first time since before Naraku's demise--over a year ago, now.  "Better me than you."

  
Inuyasha chuffed, moving past her to work his way through the small gap that served as the entrance and exit from the thicket.  "Damn right."  Kagome followed after him, knowing her grin had turned silly again.  When Miroku had blandly asked after their day at the evening meal yesterday, Inuyasha had let drop the change in status with a gleeful, "You had to chase yours, but mine came right to me."

"Came on to you, you mean?" Miroku had asked, using one of the bits of slang he had picked up from Kagome.

"Aa. I was irresistible." 

Red-faced, Kagome had shot a sharp glance at the priest. She could have sworn she hadn't been that obvious--Miroku must have sharper eyes than she thought.  Or he'd gotten a hint from elsewhere.  She looked covertly at Kohaku and Shippou, but both of them were busy eating their rice.  

Sango had given her a small smile.  Kagome had smiled back.  No, Miroku must have figured it out on his own; she knew Sango wouldn't have said anything.

Inuyasha held the branches back for her to slip out of the thicket.  "I suppose you want to go put that stuff on your teeth."

"Oh.  Yes."  Distracted, Kagome made a face. There wasn't much left of her toothpaste.  _Mama told me to be sure I had some, and I did, but I forgot to get more than a tube extra._ And Yuka told me once that ancient toothbrushes were made with pig bristles and toothpaste with urine. _She held back a shudder of distaste. "You could try it. Don't youkai get cavities?"_

"Keh!"

"It makes your mouth taste good, too," Kagome said persuasively.  Even if it did make your food taste strange afterwards.  Particularly if you drank orange juice, though that wasn't an option for her anymore.  "Oh," she said as Inuyasha stopped and looked down at her.  "I'm supposed to fix breakfast this morning."

Inuyasha made a throat-clearing noise, shifted his weight from foot to foot, then sighed and said impatiently, "Not for a while yet, right?"  When she nodded, he replied, "Then we can do some training first."

Kagome sighed, beginning to walk towards the edge of the forest and the house beyond it.  "Is this going to continue forever?"

"Nah," Inuyasha said easily, falling into step beside her.  "Just the next twenty years or so."

Gaping at him, Kagome's ears flatted in dismay as she said, "Twenty years?  _Seriously?_"

"Maybe," Inuyasha said, nudging her with his shoulder.  Kagome stepped sideways before she caught herself, then gave him a scowl and nudged back.  "Crappy," he said. "Definitely twenty years."  He nudged her again. 

"You used your elbow. That's cheating," Kagome accused.  

Inuyasha crossed his arms, resting his hands on his sleeves. "Whatever works."  Kagome shoved harder, trying to make him sidestep; Inuyasha, with his greater weight, remained immovable.  So when he shoved again, she hurried forward a step at the last moment.  After catching himself, he frowned at her.  Kagome grinned and loped ahead a few paces; when Inuyasha showed every sign of following, she quickened her pace, laughed at him, then darted onward at a run. 

Breakfast had been unremarkable, though Inuyasha had hovered while she made it.  He was more engaged in the process than was typical for him, poking his finger at the rice and reluctantly forming a few onigiri at her request.  Afterwards, they joined Sango with Rin and the baby on the porch: Sango had some mending to do and Kagome didn't want to leave for Kaede's just yet because it would mean leaving Inuyasha already.  So Kagome amused Tenichi by brushing his face with a lock of her hair while Shippou and Rin played a game.  Inuyasha sprawled next to Kagome, propped on an elbow; Miroku, with Kohaku to accompany him, had taken Kirara for a quick trip to a neighboring village where he had been requested for an exorcism.

"If you keep doing that, Kagome-chan, he _will_ pull it," Sango warned, smiling.  She sat at the edge of the porch, feet dangling towards the ground below as she held up the needle she was attempting to thread and turned it so that its eye better caught the warm afternoon sunlight.

Everything was perfect today.  Kagome shifted her arm to ease the weight of the baby's head on her elbow, then bent over to cuddle him close, grinning at the way his eyes crossed as they tried to track her face.  He smelled so good! Clean like the stream water Sango had bathed him with that morning, the sun-dried cotton wrapping him, and some of the modern soap brought through the well almost a year ago.  The wrapper described its odor as "Baby Fresh Scent!" which had led her to give all the bars of that sort to the taijiya just before the baby had been born.  "I'm sure he knows better than to do something like that to his aunt," she said lightly, watching as Sango flicked a tolerantly skeptical glance at her in reply before wrapping the thread around her finger to tie a knot in its end.

"Can't trust a pup to know anything," Inuyasha drawled.  Kagome felt a tug on her hair and looked at him: he dropped it and grinned at her.  Kagome felt her expression warm, having a momentary thought of what her hair would look like braided with his; except that was silly; they'd not be able to move like that.

Between them and the garden, Rin gave a victorious cry as she grabbed several stones in succession.  Shippou had pulled out the bag of rocks he had collected from various points along their travels--Kagome had been surprised, when she'd first seen it a few months ago, by the presence of a tarry pebble among them; Shippou had said that Inuyasha once brought it back through the well from her time for him: it smelled of gasoline and macadam--and spilled them on the ground.  They took turns tossing a stone in the air, picking up as many pebbles as possible, then catching the tossed stone before it could hit the ground.

Kagome narrowed her eyes at Inuyasha, knowing he could see and smell how far from irritation she truly was.  "That had better not be some oblique reference to my age."

"Perhaps he knows," Sango agreed, tactfully ignoring the byplay with Inuyasha.  Lifting the pieces of cloth from her lap, she held a length of them between the fingers of her left hand.  "But I would recommend you not take your eyes off him, Kagome-chan."

"Not take--" Kagome looked down, ears turning back with dismay at the sight. "Ack!"  The baby had somehow managed to stuff his mouth with the tail-end of the dangling hair.  Pulling it free, she eyed the rescued lock ruefully. "Baby slobber."  She flicked it over her shoulder with a sigh, then said reprovingly to the baby, "That's not a nice thing to do to your aunt, Tenichi-chan."

Inuyasha said, self-congratulatory, "What did I tell you about trusting a pup?"

"You can tell him what he did when he's older and embarrass him in front of his friends," Sango suggested slyly.

"Gah, Sango, and you're his mother," Inuyasha said uneasily.

Kagome agreed.  "That's an _evil suggestion for a mother to make."  She heard Inuyasha give a grunt of approval._

Sango replied serenely, "It's what I tell myself every time he wakes up in the middle of the night; and every time he soils himself."  

Inuyasha snorted a laugh, Kagome grinning as she offered the baby a finger and then waved the first about when the small fingers encircled her larger one.  When the handful headed invariably back towards the baby's mouth, she turned her finger deftly so that Tenichi gummed his own fist, her claw avoiding contact with his skin.  The baby's eyes blinked as he looked up at Kagome.  She grinned outright and leaned forward to touch the baby's nose with her own, inhaling his scent once more.  So _cute!_

Inuyasha sat up, crossing his legs as he peered at the baby.  His interest in the child had been rather minimal; Kagome showed off the other small hand to him.  Inuyasha's demeanor expressed the faintest of curiosities.  "See how perfect it is," Kagome explained.  "And he's got dimples around his knuckles and even hair."

Inuyasha's dark brows drew together as he observed this specimen of perfection.  "Is that unusual?" he asked, dubious at the praise.  He poked a tentative claw at Tenichi, who grabbed onto it with his other hand.  Inuyasha's eyebrows lifted; he tugged his finger back, but the baby's grip was stronger than he had anticipated.  He frowned.

"A lot lose all theirs for a while," Kagome said, looking at Inuyasha.  The sunlight slanted onto the porch, splashing across his hair and one ear: it made his hair almost look prismatic, showing glints of color in the pale strands, and made the inside of his ear flush a warm shell-pink. She could even see the red traceries of veins through the thin skin. 

"Hn," Inuyasha commented, flicking a glance at her and then pausing, holding it on her face.  His eyes were caught in the sunlight, too, pupils narrowed to thin slits and irises bright gold instead of shadowed amber.  

To her discomfort, Kagome could feel her face turning bright red.  She caught a breath, then stuttered, "Do--do you want to hold him?"

Inuyasha blinked and recoiled. "No!"  He abruptly pulled his finger out of the baby's grasp and planted both hands on the ground as if to prevent Kagome summarily shoving Tenichi into his arms.

"Almost done," Sango said into the following silence with a cheer that belied how many times Kagome knew she had been awakened by the baby, hungry and wanting to nurse.  Kagome glanced at her only to find the taijiya looking fixedly down at her sewing, but smiling at the cloth.  Kagome felt like squirming inside.  Sango had been watching, Kagome was certain.  Everyone would be hearing about this before nightfall.  She turned back to Inuyasha: he'd sprawled out along the porch once more and was gazing intently toward the forest, head pillowed on crossed arms, one ear turned towards her.  Well.  At least Souta wasn't here, or she'd have to be enduring annoyingly stupid songs about sitting in trees, k-i--Kagome stopped herself before she could think of the song all the way through.  She didn't even know if Inuyasha knew how to--Kagome stopped that thought, too.  _It would be nice to have Mama's advice._

Kagome shook her head and returned her attention to Tenichi; she'd made her decisions, so there was no use in belaboring them.  The baby moved his fist from his mouth, a trail of spit following it.  "Ewww," Kagome said appreciatively.  "Tenichi-chan, one day you will have a girlfriend, and I hope you will put your mouth to better use than now."  She kept her glance fixed on him, resisting the urge to see how Inuyasha had responded to that; she heard him shift, but she wasn't going to look.

"Kagome-chan!"  It was Sango's turn for shock.  As Kagome glanced over to her, she could see that the taijiya had even paused in her hemming.  "You shouldn't suggest such things to him."

Shippou had turned around momentarily to look at the two women, probably to see what had made Sango sound so dismayed.  Finding them still engrossed with the baby, he turned back to his game with Rin.  He'd told Kagome yesterday that the baby was boring--all it did was leak and stare at things--and he didn't see what made it so interesting.

"Miroku was probably told that when he was a kid," Inuyasha said.

Sango laughed as Kagome addressed the baby. "Do we want Tenichi-chan to turn out like his lecherous houshi of a father?  No, we do _not_." 

Sango set aside the sewing, folding her legs up to her chest.  Her eyes rested on the baby, warm with love.  "He'll be a good man some day."

The scent of the freshly planted rice paddies was strong on the breezes that whispered by from time to time.  "Maybe a farmer." Kagome suggested.  

"Or a blacksmith," Sango said.  

Inuyasha pushed himself up onto his elbows to look past Kagome at Sango. "Not a taijiya?"

Sango shook her head. "No."  

Kagome raised her eyebrows in curiosity. "You don't want to train him?"

"It's not that, although it would present some difficulties.  My father didn't start to train me, or Kohaku, until after we'd learned for several years already--he said it was better that way, that we came to him disciplined and ready to learn, rather than being so young that we couldn't tell when he was our instructor and when he was our father."  Sango turned her gaze to the forest.

"Kohaku could teach him," Inuyasha said, sitting up and resting his chin on Kagome's shoulder as he peered at the baby once more.  Kagome's heart thudded hard for a moment as she tried to keep her breath even this time.  He did that so casually now, and if she just turned her cheek even slightly, she would brush against him.  Kagome was trying to decide what would be likely to happen if she did that when Sango's words drew her back to the conversation.

"Oh, Inuyasha, I don't think he'll be here that long."  At Kagome's startled look, Sango said, her gaze turning anxious, "I think--I think seeing me just reminds him of everything Naraku did. Even though he can't remember it all, he remembers about me, and our father, and the rest of our village."

With a sigh, Kagome dropped her gaze to Tenichi, brushing one knuckle against the softness of his round cheek.  _Is Naraku why she wouldn't want Tenichi-chan to be a taijiya? The chance that he might run into someone like that?  Youkai don't have a monopoly on evil, though.  She'd miss Kohaku.  So would Inuyasha, she knew; he was already smelling a little disgruntled.  He'd been rather cocky after Tenichi's birth--his pack increasing--and the possibility of Kohaku's departure would negate that.  Not that it was all about numbers; Inuyasha and Kirara often spent the time Kagome was at Kaede's letting Kohaku train his skills by practicing with them.  Kagome knew Inuyasha enjoyed that, enjoyed the boy's presence.  The baby gurgled, catching her finger with his own; this time, she let him suck on her knuckle.  "Maybe he'll be a priest."_

"Or a poet, and famous in some daimyo's court," said Sango.

Kagome grinned at the baby.  "And pay honor to his mother's spirit with his lyrics."

"Keh," Inuyasha said in a disgusted tone.  "Let him get bigger before you plan his life for him."

Sango's smile was evident in her voice.  "That might be nice."  

Shippou shouted in disgust.  Turning to look at the kitsune and human girl, it was clear that Rin had won another game.  Leaving Shippou to gather up his stones, the girl pattered up to the porch.  Her eyes turned to the baby in Kagome's arms, her smile engaging. "May I hold Tenichi-chan, please--please please please!"  

Shippou grumbled, not so loud that Sango or Rin could hear, but unmistakable to Inuyasha and Kagome. "Boring baby."  

 "If Kagome-chan doesn't mind," Sango said to Rin, biting off another length of thread with a quick jerk, "by all means.  I'll have to feed him in a while, then burp him afterwards. Maybe you'd like to help me with that?"  

Kagome shot her a look of wicked appreciation, trying to control her embarrassment when Inuyasha let out a suspicious-sounding snicker; Sango hadn't meant anything by her comment, but only a few nights ago Inuyasha had been needling Kagome about her protectiveness towards the baby.  "Just like some family dog who gets nervous every time someone tries to touch 'her' children," he'd said.  "Good plan," Kagome said to Sango, proud of the way she'd kept her voice from wavering at the memory; or at least that the roughness of her voice had disguised the waver.  She carefully kept from looking at Inuyasha.

He straightened so that his chin no longer pressed on Kagome's shoulder. "Oi, Shippou, he reminds me of you," Inuyasha remarked. 

"What?" the kitsune shrieked, dropping his stones and turning to glare at Inuyasha, his tail twitching in visible irritation.

"Hai," Rin said, then grinned broadly as she carefully cradled the baby that Kagome passed to her.  A few more years and she'd be old enough to have babies of her own, by the standards of the era.  _I wonder what Sesshomaru will do then, Kagome wondered.  "Thank you, Kagome-neesama," the young girl said in delight, gently rocking Tenichi in her arms as she sat down._

Kagome stretched out, bracing her arms on the porch as she straightened and tensed the muscles of each leg to work away the stiffness of having sat so long as well as the morning's training.  It had mostly been running--or, as he said she liked it so much, being chased; Inuyasha wanted her to be able to run without getting winded as quickly as she did.  _And to think that three years of tracking down Naraku still didn't leave me in great shape! _She eyed her feet in satisfaction: they were still clean.  Neither Sango nor Miroku nor Kohaku had ever commented, but Kagome felt keenly the inappropriateness of going barefoot outside and then coming into the house, so she kept a pan with some water and a cloth near the porch for her to use.  Inuyasha never noticed, or cared, whether his feet were dirty or not when he came inside; but Kagome had yet to come around to his way of thinking.  On this topic, she didn't really want to, either.  

"Yeah, he's a runt like you," Inuyasha declared.  Uncrossing his legs, he draped them over the edge of the porch as Kagome had, though his greater height meant that his feet actually touched the ground rather than dangling as hers did.  Likewise, he leaned back, though bracing himself on his elbows instead.

Leaving his stones behind, Shippou launched himself across the grass towards Inuyasha.  "Take that back!" he demanded, flashing into a pink bubble midway to the porch.

"Keh!  You can't take back the truth," Inuyasha said, eyelids lowered as he looked to one side. 

Ruefully, Kagome patted her lap in invitation to the kitsune before he could begin gnawing on Inuyasha's head. "Why don't you sit with me for a bit, Shippou-kun?"  Still looking somewhat grumpy, Shippou dropped onto the porch into his true form, climbed onto her legs and sat, folding his arms.  She bent down, arms circling him as she said to him quietly, "I'll play a game with you later, if you like."

"No you won't," Shippou contradicted her, "you'll be doing something gross with Inuyasha later, I bet."

Kagome's reply was forestalled by a gasp of surprise from Rin and Inuyasha's growled, "Fuck."  Kagome turned from Shippou to see Rin shove Tenichi willy-nilly at his mother, leaping off the porch to run towards a tall, slender form that had just stepped out of the forest, the crows rising to the air in a dark eddy of agitated cawing.  "Sesshomaru-sama!"

"Fuck," Inuyasha repeated in a sour tone.  He shifted for a second as if he were going to stand, then crossed his arms and legs, shoving his hands up his sleeves.  "Keh."  

"Inuyasha-sama, did I not say last night that I had seen your brother heading in this direction?" came the cracked voice of Myouga, springing from a fold of the red haori onto Inuyasha's shoulder.

Kagome ran a hand over Shippou's hair in a gesture more soothing to her than him as she gave Inuyasha a concerned glance.  

"Inuyasha?" Sango said, standing up carefully with the baby in her arms.  

No sooner had the crows settled than they rose again, angrier than before.  Kagome looked at them, ears turning back in uncertainty.  Sesshomaru had moved away from the forest, followed by his small green toady and the lumbering two-headed beast; they couldn't be upset by him still.

"I'm not going over there--_shit!"  Inuyasha stood, hands fisting furiously as another figure made its way out of the forest in a cloud of dust kicked up from running._

---------

AN: Again, most appreciative thanks to Miriam for timely criticisms and questions!

Thank you to everyone for your reviews, too.  They've been great in terms of giving me ideas about what folks are interested in, what I'm conveying clearly, and what I've needed to work on further.  And they're great motivators--reading them has made me so delighted that I have, almost every time, sat down to write a bit more immediately.  So thank you for taking the time to comment!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

"Such a fulsome greeting, Inuyasha," said Sesshomaru. Sometimes, about all Inuyasha appeared to have experience with was profanity, and even then his vocabulary was sadly limited as far as Sesshomaru was concerned.  He took in the figures gathered at the edge of the porch of the hanyou's den building, identifying them by scent:  that girl, the taijiya, her pup, the kitsune--and the rapidly fading, miniscule youki of a flea youkai: that retainer of his father's who had attached himself to the hanyou, he supposed.  The young human boy was absent, as was the priest.

"Fuck you, too," his half-brother spat, flicking a glance at Sesshomaru before turning his attention to the other youkai.  The once-human girl put a hand to his arm--in restraint, Sesshomaru supposed: a foolish purpose where Inuyasha was concerned.  He turned his own attention downwards, his nostrils flaring as the breeze brought him the odor of the human village more strongly than before: ashes, grease, tears, rice, leather, piss and vinegar and offal.  How Inuyasha managed to stand the filthy reek was beyond him.  

"Rin, go fetch your things."

Rin's face puckered a moment--really, humans only enhanced their resemblance to monkeys when they did that: they should know better--before she nodded.  "Hai, Sesshomaru-sama," she said, and smiled.  He noted that she had another tooth missing. Children seemed prone to a propensity for littering, leaving bits of themselves and their belongings behind everywhere.  Inuyasha had once even abandoned one of his milk teeth in a persimmon, then had the unmitigated gall to try passing the fruit off on Sesshomaru as something edible.

"Leave, wolf!  Sesshomaru-sama has business here," Jaken announced from behind Sesshomaru, who turned infitesimally so he could see the other youkai as well as his half-brother; the wolf--Kouga--had sunk into a crouch, one hand to the ground for balance as he panted.  What an unexpectedly humble posture from him that was, too.

"I have business as well," the wolf said, breathing labored, looking at Inuyasha.  Beyond him, the crows settled at last into their roosts once more after the last bursts of their dissatisfied caws.  

"The hell you do!"  The hanyou shook off that girl's hand, with a muttered, "Stay here."

"Sesshomaru-sama is--" Jaken began, the lids of his bulbous eyes narrowing with irritation to glare at Kouga.

"Jaken," Sesshomaru said.

"Hai, Sesshomaru-sama!"  When Sesshomaru stared at him, declining to say more, uncertainty closed the toady's open mouth.  He shuffled over to Ah-Un, grumbling under his breath words Sesshomaru did not deign to hear.

"Dog turd," Kouga began, making Jaken squawk angrily until he saw that the address was directed at Inuyasha, "I want--"

A snarl scratched its way up Inuyasha's throat; Sesshomaru held back a sigh as the hanyou whipped Tetsusaiga out of its sheath.  He definitely was an idiot to make such a fuss with Kouga having already signaled his regret for the intrusion.

"Oi," the wolf exclaimed, springing out of the way of the hanyou's first slash at the last possible second.  "Inuyasha--"

"It's my territory and you're in it. Again," Inuyasha growled, taking another swipe with the sword.  He had such a talent for stating the obvious; but--again?  The fool deserved to have interlopers, if he wasn't able to guard his claimed area properly.

"Dog turd, I just came to--" Kouga threw himself flat to avoid the swing.  A few voices murmured amongst themselves: some of the other humans who lived nearby had started to gather near the edge of the building by the taijiya, presumably supposing that their resident youkai was fighting off some vicious intruder on their behalf. Heh. Sesshomaru considered it rather degrading on Inuyasha's part to lend himself to such, as if he were some human's guard dog; besides, it was a waste of time and effort: they died so quickly that protecting them was scarcely warranted.  But, Sesshomaru supposed, protecting the humans meant that someone was around to cultivate that rice; Inuyasha had his pack to feed, and was ridiculously willing to indulge their sensibilities at times: a sure sign of his human breeding expressing itself.

"I know what you came for, and you can't have her.  She's _mine."  So.  Inuyasha was courting the girl now; not a terribly surprising circumstance, given his questions of the past autumn.  And apparently the wolf saw something of value in her, too, if he were also chasing after the girl's tail.  Although if this had happened before, Inuyasha really was an idiot for not dealing with the wolf youkai so emphatically that he wouldn't make another attempt._

Sesshomaru slanted a look at the female in question; she was stalking toward them, ears forward and her scent edgy with ire: rather more aggressiveness than he'd seen from her in the past.  "Inuyasha," she began, before being interrupted by a growl--apparently his half-brother was unable to let anyone complete a sentence when in the throes of a fit of temper--but continued loudly, "Inuyasha.  I want to hear what he has to say."

An uneasy mutter from a couple of the villagers came to Sesshomaru's ears.  "She wants to _stop the fight?"  "Somebody should find the Miko-sama; she's fought youkai before. She'd know what to do."_

When another swing and another faltering evasion on Kouga's part resulted in nothing but a yelp and a few hairs shaved from the youkai's tail, Inuyasha slammed Tetsusaiga back into its sheath; the proximity of those humans and the fact that he would be ripping up his own territory apparently discouraged him from using the _kaze no kizu._

"Bitch," Inuyasha snarled, flinging the words at her as he made a clawed lunge for the wolf, "you're not going to let him hide behind your skirts."

"Dog turd, talk! That's _all," Kouga gasped out, stumbling away from Inuyasha with a gash down his shoulder._

"Inuyasha, stop!"

"Just try to make me, bitch!"

It was not the wisest of actions to insult and challenge one's lead female so openly; but then, Inuyasha seldom followed the course of wisdom.  Sesshomaru watched as the woman's features tightened with anger.  "Fine," she said, inhaling visibly.

Oh, this was interesting indeed.  Her youki had been rather innocuous up until this moment, as it had been when he left Rin with her in the fall; but now it was flaring: a sullen rise of power that seemed oddly turned on itself, as if it were fighting some unseen opponent.  A look of intense concentration warred with the anger in the girl's face as she sank to her knees, claws fisting into the earth.  Heh.  She could do little sitting on the ground like that.  What the hanyou needed was to have some manners smacked into him, but that would be an uphill struggle. Their father's death had been inconvenient in many ways.

Then her scent started to change. Inuyasha hadn't been thinking at all whenever he made whatever wish it had been that set all this up; if he had, he would have avoided this sort of trouble.  

"Shit!" Inuyasha yelped as he slammed into some unseen barrier and was thrown to the ground, midway through a swipe at Kouga.  He got to his feet, shaking one hand painfully, then made another attempt--only to fall back again.  "The hell?"

"Oi," said the first villager who had spoken earlier, his voice a little louder this time. "She _is trying to stop them.  I knew it--a miko just couldn't change like that without something being wrong with her."_

The wolf rose likewise, but more slowly, still obviously winded.  Tentatively, ready to snatch back as if from a flaming branch, he reached the hand not held to his torn shoulder towards the spot against which Inuyasha had impacted. "Kekkai?"

"Kaede!" Inuyasha growled, his ears pinning back.

Sesshomaru sighed. "Inuyasha, you fool.  Look at the girl."

Inuyasha blinked, his shift from a combative focus patent as he spun on his haunches. The girl's ears were flat, her head ducked; tension held her shoulders and arms taut, the flexing of her claws into the grass and dirt her only movement.  Sesshomaru saw Inuyasha flinch when he caught wind of her scent.  The hanyou moved a step away from Kouga.  "Kagome?"  He approached her with a few swift steps, the faint twitch of an ear her only response.  "Oh, shit."  The hanyou's own ears flattened in dismay, color fading sickly from his skin.

"Kagome? What's wrong with Kagome?" the kitsune boy yelled, tail twitching in agitation.  "Dog boy, what did you do?"  A hand to his collar jerked him back when he attempted to jump off the porch, the taijiya holding him in place.

"Shit!" Kouga echoed, leaping back as the finger he'd been poking with sank through the barrier.

Inuyasha barked out a harried, "Shut the fuck up! All of you." He unsheathed Tetsusaiga.

"Showing some intelligence at last, I see," Shesshomaru said.  He had wondered how long it would take the hanyou to make that move.

"No-one tells Sesshomaru-sama when to be quiet," Jaken huffed.

"Dog boy, stop it!" the kitsune shrieked. 

Kouga approached the kekkai again.  His hand moved over the barrier before fingers sank in again at a different spot.  Reaching higher, he found a place where his whole hand, instead of sliding up along a dome formed over his head, appeared to slip over an edge.

A muffled whine escaped through the girl's tightly clenched jaws, the acrid smell of pain tainting her scent.

"Shippou-kun, hush," the taijiya said severely, keeping her hand fisted in his collar as she stepped off the porch to push through the villagers huddling by there in an indecisive knot.  Shippou stumbled along with her a few steps, then hurried to keep up until she was once again holding him back.

Inuyasha snarled, "I said _shut up," reversing the untransformed sword and shoving it into the girl's lap. When it threatened to slide to the ground, he grabbed one of her hands by the wrist and tried to curl her fingers around the hilt.  "Bitch, you've got to hold onto it."  A rough anxiety underlay the harsh abruptness of his words._

"Kagome, drop the barrier. Now," snapped another voice.  Followed by an anxious villager, an old human woman stumped towards the hanyou and the girl.  She smelled of incense and illness; and Sesshomaru recognized her as the one he had left Rin with, and Inuyasha the kitsune, last winter after Sesshomaru had made Inuyasha cough up the location to which they had traced that Naraku.

Kouga, engaged in climbing over the top of the poorly-made kekkai, gave an angry shout as his support disappeared and he fell to the ground.

A shudder ran through the girl. Sesshomaru caught a flash of red in her eyes as she lifted her face, slick with a sheen of sweat, before she gulped a breath of air and the color faded to an unimpressive brown.  She sagged, slumped, breathing as if she, too, had been running at top speed for a long time.

"What the hell were you doing?" Inuyasha demanded, claws digging into the wrist he still held.

The girl's chest rose and fell as she sucked in a breath of air; her face reddening as if it had seen too much sun.  Another breath, then she pulled away to say with dull anger, "Trying to stop you from hurting Kouga-kun when he _said_ he just came to talk."  Sesshomaru could sense the waning tang of a youkai fading from her scent, to be replaced with the tartness of anger.

"She was trying to put up a kekkai, Inuyasha," the old miko said; Sesshomaru could see the disapproval that settled into the lines wrinkling her face, folded and webbed as a dried prune.

"You were ordering me, bi--what?"

The girl crossed her arms, looking aside as her ears twitched in obvious discomfort at the movement. "You _told me to stop you," she said.  Sesshomaru stilled a twitch of his lip that wanted to curl in appreciation.  She was not entirely unintelligent._

"Kagome," the miko interrupted before Inuyasha could reply, "did you tell Inuyasha what I said the other night after he left?"  The kitsune, wriggling free of the taijiya's hold at last as she struggled to balance the fretful baby with the boy's determined squirming, darted over to throw himself at the girl.

Kouga shook himself as he got to hands and knees, then stood, the black tail of his hair sliding over one shoulder.

Inuyasha bit back a curse as he snatched Tetsusaiga from where the kitsune's arrival had shoved it ignominiously to the ground.  "What the hell do you mean by that? What did you tell her?  Kagome, do you realize--"

"Miko-sama," said the opinionated peasant, hesitantly making his way to stand near the old human, "are you going to do something about her now?  She was preventing Inuyasha-san from defeating that youkai."  He gave a distrustful glance to Kouga, who snarled a reply in tandem with Inuyasha.

"The fuck I'll let anything happen to Kagome," the leader of the wolf youkai growled.

"Kagome wasn't--shut the fuck up, wimpy wolf!"

"Can't you say anything else, dog turd?"

"Taka-san," the miko said in a tired tone, "how many times do I have to tell you that Kagome-sama is perfectly fine?"

"Inuyasha! Kouga-kun! I wish you two would hush and--"

"A pity you weren't more thoughtful with your wish, Inuyasha.  You could have avoided this trouble by making her a full youkai to begin with."

The girl flinched, falling silent as Inuyasha howled in a towering fury, "I wasn't asked! I don't know what fucking shitty wish I made, you assho--"  His words were cut short as a jangling staff slammed across his shoulders and knocked him to the ground next to the girl.

"Not even gone half a day, and look what a furor I return to," the priest announced in a mournful tone as the heated voices crashed and broke in a wave of startled silence around the hanyou.  The priest's glance, however, was alert and quick as it moved from the abashed and unhappy figure of the girl, to the kitsune in her lap, to the resigned figure of the stoop-shouldered miko, to the fisted, angry stance of the wolf youkai, his breathing slow at last, to the truculent villager, and then to Sesshomaru, who returned the look impassively.  Rather casual treatment of a pack leader by a second, but--effective.  "Sango, light of my life and guide to my enlightenment through sens--"  The priest coughed at the fierceness of the taijiya's glance and concluded meekly, "Perhaps you would care to bring enlightenment of another sort to me? --Informationally, I mean!" He finished in a hurry as the taijiya lifted a flat-palmed hand in what, by the way the priest reacted, had to be some sort of warning.

"Kaede-sama was about to explain why Kagome was having problems controlling her youki when she tried to keep Inuyasha and Kouga apart with a kekkai," Inuyasha's female second, the taijiya, explained with a succinctness and informative simplicity that left Sesshomaru mildly impressed.  A noise from the young male taijiya who had made his way to the priest's side caused her gaze to jump to him before it flicked to the silently fuming Inuyasha, who had grabbed hold of the girl's wrist again and was exchanging glares with her, the ears of both erect and tense.

"Ah, I see," the priest said, eyes sweeping over the villagers.  "That sounds like a long discussion indeed, and I find myself rather thirsty.  Some tea might be nice.  Taka-san, all," he continued smoothly with a bow to the other peasants, "you must not let us keep you from your own efforts while we address Kagome-sama's little difficulty."

"But," the human protested.

The old miko said authoritatively, "I already told you, Taka-san.  There is nothing to worry over.  All these youkai are known to me; they are . . . acquaintances . . . of Inuyasha. And Kagome-sama is fine.  Your wife would have been the worse if she had not helped her with that burn, ne?"

"Shithead," Inuyasha muttered in a burst of eloquence as the villagers reluctantly dispersed.  He stood, pulling the girl up with him in a move that dumped the protesting kitsune to the ground.

"Inuyasha," she began, then fell into a bristling silence when he shot her a sharp look.  

Miroku gestured with one hand, flapping it up and down in a movement absurd to Sesshomaru: just another one of those inexplicable things humans did.  "Maa, maa," he said placatingly.  They would be best not to have taught Rin any bad habits.

"Jerk," the kitsune said resentfully under his breath, picking himself up from the grass.  Knowing that if Inuyasha was aware he and the others were a pack he would have to keep the kitsune around because the girl mothered it, no matter how irritating it was, had been what prompted Sesshomaru to inform the hanyou of their status and his as pack leader when they had been tracking that Naraku.  He was somewhat satisfied to see the kitsune was living up to his expectations--and perhaps somewhat satisfied, as well, to see Inuyasha do no more than twitch his ears angrily in response to the remark; the hanyou did not turn around as he tugged that girl along with him towards the building.

As the others headed to the porch, Kouga passed by Sesshomaru, cleaning the blood of his shoulder wound from his fingers with his tongue.  The saunter familiar to Sesshomaru from last winter had been absent since the wolf arrived; Kouga moved reluctantly with frequent glances over his shoulder, as if there were somewhere else he would much rather be.  But his voice was as insolently casual as ever when he asked, "What brings you to talk to Inuyasha? I thought you two couldn't stand each other."

Sesshomaru said flatly, "My business," and ignored him thereafter until the wolf shrugged and moved away.  The air freshened with his distance, wolf-sweat and blood dispersed by a welcome gust of wind that brought with it the pines and maples of the forest.  Sesshomaru wanted to consider what Inuyasha had blurted about the wish.  He'd been thinking the hanyou a fool for having made use of the jewel, but apparently that had not been the case; therefore, it was that girl who had to have used it.  Except that Inuyasha had claimed to be responsible for her situation during Sesshomaru's visit last fall, when Inuyasha had so rudely demanded to know--the idiot--about mating.  As if it were his, Sesshomaru's, role to inform him of such.  Much good may the information have done him.  

"Sesshomaru-sama!" Rin said happily, picking up a bundle as he neared.  "I'm all ready."

"Give your things to Jaken," he said, responding indifferently to the details with which he could tell she wanted to burst forth.  The building they approached wasn't as odiferous as the others nearby--he supposed with so many youkai in residence, even if two of them were half-blooded, something had to be worked out--but still: old wood and paper, vinegar and noodles and fish, all overlaid with the scents of humans and the others, but mostly heavier odor of a male hanyou.  

"Hai!"  Rin jumped off the porch with a bouncy step.  A shadow crossed her face as she passed Inuyasha and Kagome; instead of heading immediately towards Jaken, she paused to look back at them.

The young taijiya boy whom Sesshomaru had used Tenseiga to revive along with that girl pulled Rin's attention away from Sesshomaru when he asked, "Rin-chan, are you leaving?"

"Un!  When Sesshomaru-sama does," she confirmed, turning to the boy with another bright smile.  "I'm going to go see Jaken-sama now. Want to come meet him, Kohaku-san?"

Kohaku shook his head, the worry that pulled down the corners of his mouth plain to Sesshomaru. "I should stay here. Have fun, though." 

On the porch, Inuyasha dropped to a seat, pulling that girl down after him.  "Did you decide not to tell me, or what?" he demanded as the priest sat down to one side of him, the taijiya and her pup by his side.  Sesshomaru stood on the other, his back to one of the porch columns.  He combed his fingers through the pelt over his shoulder, idly watching Kouga's sullen move away from the pair to a seat opposite them.  

"No!" the girl snapped emphatically, meeting the hanyou's narrowed gaze with her own.  "I meant to, but I forgot."

"You _forgot? What the hell did you forget?"_

Having made her way to the porch behind the rest, the old woman accepted the taijiya boy's proffered arm to kneel, heels tucked under pleated red trousers.  "Kagome, you were angry again, ne?"

The girl's mouth tightened, lips thinning in remembered displeasure. "Yes."

Inuyasha growled, his free hand clenching angrily; he kept hold of her wrist with the other.

"I just wanted to ask you a fucking favor, dog turd!" Kouga said.  "That was _all_."

Sesshomaru shifted, sinking his fingers momentarily deeper into the pelt. Whatever the wolf's situation was, it had to be extreme--both to have him willing to ask for help and to send him to Inuyasha. No wonder he had been acting so meek when he had arrived, particularly if he and the hanyou had a history of fighting over the girl.  No one with eyes and a brain, however, could have failed to notice that the two were courting--the way Inuyasha kept hold of her wrist had been clue enough for Sesshomaru--and that it would end successfully for the hanyou: no female youkai with two thoughts to rub together in her head would allow a male so close for so long if she were unwilling to breed with him.  It just went to show once more the essential stupidity of wolves.

"I had thought," the old miko said before Inuyasha could spit back a reply, "that Kagome's miko abilities were interfered with by her becoming a hanyou. But now I have begun to suspect that it is the other way around, that they are what restrain her from becoming a youkai. "

Inuyasha looked like he'd bitten into a worm-ridden ume. 

The priest arched his eyebrows and looked to his mate inquisitively. The taijiya shook her head.  He turned back to look between the miko and the girl. "Kagome-sama is _sealing_ herself?"

"I think perhaps. As a hanyou, she's--balanced, to some extent.  She can't really use her powers, but neither were they hurting her.  But if she tries to use them, or if something makes her lose control, then their sealing work is interrupted."  The miko shot a glance at Kouga and then Inuyasha, who was staring down at his hand wrapped around that girl's wrist.  She, in turn, had bent her head towards him, eyes resting on his face, ears to the side in evident apprehension.  Her skin had reddened further, on her face and hands and feet as far as Sesshomaru could see, until she looked feverish.

"And then she tries to purify herself?" the young boy taijiya whispered into the uneasy silence that followed the old woman's words.

Inuyasha flinched as if struck.  Across from his back, Kouga said in a voice low with bitter anger, "And you said you would protect her."

Inuyasha reared back, baring his teeth in rage.  Before he could turn to retaliate, the girl reversed his grasp on her wrist to take his, other hand flashing out to grab his free arm and slam his hands to the wood flooring of the porch.

"_Kagome."_

"_No."_

"It was her wish, wolf," Sesshomaru said coldly.  "And her choice to spend her life for him back then."

"_I don't want to talk about this." The intensity of her words drew Sesshomaru's eyes to the girl.  She had leaned forward, resting her forehead against the hanyou's, whose eyes were closed; her hands still pressed over his.  "There is not one thing I would change, do you hear me?"  Inuyasha opened his eyes and she stared into them, her gaze direct, for the space of a few breaths._

"What I want is to hear about what brought Kouga-kun here," she continued in a more normal tone.  "And eat, and then go bathe.  Please?"

The last word was what did it.  Inuyasha's chest moved as he drew in air and straightened.  "Fine."

Sesshomaru, like the others, watched the exchange silently.  Heh.  Whatever inadequacies his idiot half-brother had, he'd stumbled onto a good decision, for once, in choosing that girl as his lead female and future mate.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven  
  
_Damnit_. Kouga watched Kagome with Inuyasha, ignoring the urge he still felt to pant. He hoped like hell nothing went wrong while he was gone, because he'd be too tired to deal with it when he returned. Avoiding Inuyasha's sword had been hard enough, and then that thing Kagome had done. At least he couldn't smell hurt on her anymore, or fear, though that had been brief anyways: she really was a strong bitch.  
  
_They're _still_ staring_. He'd been expecting this ever since Kagome's telling display during the battle with Naraku, but when nothing had happened by the spring, and shit for all by the fall, he had thought that maybe...damn it. Glancing away, he caught the quick jerks of faces turning away from him and felt like biting something. Well, Inuyasha didn't have a tail, but he was still handy. "Dog turd," Kouga said, and then tried again more loudly. "Oi!" The two hanyou across from him finally broke their staring match, and damn if Inuyasha hadn't been the one to do it first.  
  
"Fine," Inuyasha said to Kagome, straightening.  
  
Kouga gritted his teeth as the asshole continued to keep his back turned, however. "Oi, dog turd, am I going to have to wait all day? I want to head back today, not the next new moon." There. That ought to get his attention; he wouldn't like notice being drawn to his human days.  
  
Kouga felt a momentary rush of vindication as Inuyasha did shift to face him in a quick jerk. "You'll talk, and then leave?"  
  
Kouga frowned, and crossed his arms to hide his uncertainty. No response to the new moon thing? "Yeah." Well, Inuyasha was rather slow on the uptake at times: just look at how often he'd let Kagome stray into trouble. Kouga would have kept her safe with his pack and not let her wander, and she could have used her powers to help them. As long as he was with his pack, they were all safe. _Damnit, Ginta, Hakkaku, where the hell did you go? There's no-one with them now._  
  
"That's it? You'll leave."  
  
The priest made an odd noise, but when Kouga looked at him, he was only sneezing. He turned back to Inuyasha with a glare. The stinking dog turd must have been so muddled by Kagome that he missed the new moon comment. Unless he was purposefully trying to irritate Kouga by ignoring it--that must be it. He smoothed the grimace from his face and replied calmly, "That's what I said, dog turd."  
  
Inuyasha first frowned and then demanded, "So what is it?" It had worked.  
  
Kouga's sense of triumph faded, the words coming slowly to him. He'd managed to say it earlier when trying to get Inuyasha to stop attacking him, but having to repeat himself was galling. Fuck dogs for being so easily distracted that they missed the really serious things. "I . . . want a favor."  
  
The others were quiet, reminding him of his own pack's intensity when on a hunt. He shifted uneasily, focused on Inuyasha and Kagome as always; the hanyou's humans had held mostly little interest. The hanyou had narrowed his yellow eyes, glance flicking to each of the humans and the kitsune before he returned his attention to Kouga, looking rather sour about something: probably remembering the offer he'd made the night after Naraku's defeat.  
  
Loud in the silence were the peepings of tree frogs searching for mates down in the rice paddies. Kouga could see Kagome's ears twitch as she, too, caught their rainfall of sound. She even had the smell of the dog turd over her now; it hadn't been like that this past autumn. Why Inuyasha was taking so long to go about mating her, however, was lost to Kouga: he would have done it ages ago.  
  
When Inuyasha didn't try to bluster about not doing any favors for wolves, Kouga began to relax slightly, just the faintest release of tightened muscles. His shoulder twinged, healing. Finally, Inuyasha conceded to the silence with a cranky, "And?" His face was half-turned toward Kagome, as if he would have been looking at her had Kouga not demanded his attention.  
  
Kouga tightened his hands into fists, feeling the blunt nails of his fingers press against his palms. He almost twitched his tail in irritation before he caught himself back. "Hakkaku and Ginta are missing." The offer Inuyasha had made that night after the final battle with Naraku had originally meant nothing to Kouga; he hadn't joined in with Inuyasha in order to assist the hanyou, but because that was the only way he was going to be able to avenge his pack on Naraku. But now he had no other option but to hope the dog turd would make good. Ayame's pack had shifted territories to somewhere; and there was only himself left with the pack now.  
  
Kagome opened her mouth in dismay; Inuyasha repeated, "And?" earning himself thereby a downwards turn of Kagome's lips.  
  
"Damn it," Kouga exploded in a release of frustration, leaning forward towards Inuyasha angrily. "They've been gone too long, and it's our first spring in a new territory; who knows what the fuck might show up: but maybe other youkai. How long do you think my wolves would last, if some youkai comes sniffing out another youkai den?  
  
"You may not care," he continued, shooting the indifferent Sesshomaru an acidic glance, "but our senior bitch will pup again this spring; they know as well as I do that you don't leave the bitches alone when they're like that." Kouga knew the others could smell his agitation, but he was past caring. Just talking about it made him more anxious; he'd come as fast as he could, but his pack was going to be alone for three days at least before he got back, and that was enough for some youkai to enter their territory and get to the den. They were all that he had left, thanks to Naraku; and damned if he would let anything happen to them.  
  
"They probably saw another youkai and ran away," Inuyasha muttered, then fell back with a spat curse as Kouga leaped forward and slammed him onto his back, pinning him by the shoulders.  
  
"You fucking dog turd, don't you get it?" Kouga snarled, "I can't leave the pack to look for them, and the pack can't travel because of the pups that'll come. Their scent left the territory. By the time I started trying to find them, it was too stale for me to follow."  
  
"Kouga-kun," Kagome began, before Inuyasha interrupted whatever she had been about to say by lifting his legs and kicking Kouga in the gut; that sent Kouga crashing backwards against one of the porch supports.  
  
When he picked himself up with a shake, Inuyasha was glaring at Kagome again, but spared Kouga a brusque, "Kohaku can go back with you. He's good enough at tracking, and--"  
  
"Damn you dogs and your fixation on humans," Kouga said with a bitter growl in his voice. "He killed some of my pack. I know what was going on, but my wolves won't. They won't stand him in our territory." Were the dog turd's brains so distracted by Kagome that he wasn't thinking at all, or had he always been this stupid?  
  
Kouga could hear indrawn breaths from the humans but ignored them, keeping his gaze on Inuyasha and Kagome. At least Inuyasha was indicating that he'd help.  
  
Inuyasha had reared back angrily, spitting out a piece of his hair that had fallen across his mouth in the grappling with Kouga; before he could speak, however, Kohaku had taken the initiative into his own hands. From where he sat next to Kagome, he bowed low. His forehead pressed against the wooden slats of the porch floor. "Please accept my regrets for the harm I have done you."  
  
Kouga could scent his distress, and clamped his teeth shut to hold back a retort. What did stupid human gestures like that do? Even if they did look uncomfortably like those of a pup begging forgiveness. In the past he would have simply killed the boy and let his pack make a meal off him--which was only fitting, the taker of pack lives supporting pack lives as food. But they'd stopped preying on humans to please Kagome; and even though it hadn't helped his courtship, he didn't want to upset her by starting again now. Besides, trying to take down a member of Inuyasha's pack with the hanyou in reach was not a move guaranteed for success; and he'd known the boy had been with them ever since Naraku's defeat when that fucker Sesshomaru had revived him with that sword of his, then refused to bestir himself for Kouga's wolves.  
  
"You idiot," Sesshomaru pronounced in a bored tone. "The boy was controlled."  
  
Kohaku kept his face pressed to the floor as he said, voice muffled, "Their deaths were still at my hands. I'm responsible for them."  
  
Holding her pup so tightly that it squalled, the female taijiya broke out with a, "Kohaku, no!"  
  
"They're my pack, it's up to me--" Kouga snapped in reply to Sesshomaru.  
  
"Wimpy wolf, you can't just--" Inuyasha began at the same time.  
  
"Human morals are so tedious," Sesshomaru said as casually as if the bastard expected them to stop fighting in order to hear what he had to say. The fucking inu youkai could just sniff Kouga's ass if that's what he wanted; Kouga would fight Inuyasha has much as he cared to.  
  
When Sesshomaru followed this up by leaning away from the porch support and stepped onto the ground, however, Inuyasha scrambled to his feet. "Oi, oi," Inuyasha protested. "That's it? You're leaving?" Kouga's head started to ache; he just wanted to be back with his pack where humans didn't try to throw themselves at his feet and inu youkai siblings weren't continuing the latest round of their fucking weird rivalry. If Inuyasha really wanted his brother gone, he shouldn't sound so pissed like he was trying to pick a fight. "I thought you had some business with me, you asshole!"  
  
Sesshomaru paced on towards the forest where that odd retainer and the human girl waited with the two-headed beast--possession of which alone had been enough to convince Kouga that Sesshomaru was as foolhardy as his brother. His voice was cool with negligence when he replied, "When has this Sesshomaru ever desired anything to do with you? Later, Inuyasha."  
  
Inuyasha jerked up short at the edge of the porch; Kouga huffed a breath to keep his nose free of the scent coming off the hanyou. But Inuyasha's ears did nothing more than twitch. Instead, he yelled angrily, "What the fuck do you mean, later? Aren't you going back to Kyushu, asshole?"  
  
Sesshomaru didn't stir himself to raise his voice as the distance grew, so the humans were left to demand a repeat from the kitsune--they'd tried asking Kagome, but she had simply shook her head and kept her eyes fixed on Inuyasha, her brow puckered--when the other youkai replied, "Too many humans there. I will be looking for the wind user."  
  
Kouga slewed around and bit his tongue, nearly choking when the descending swallow met the rising snarl in his throat. "That bitch? _That bitch_? What, so she can kill off all the humans for you? If you find her, I'll kill her!" His whole pack. The bitch had killed off his whole pack, but for the few with him. The boy had been so controlled as not to have a choice, but she. . . . He would kill her himself, no leaving it to Ginta and Hakkaku this time around. Between her and Kohaku, he had been lucky that any of his pack was left.  
  
"It is sad to note that your pack's inability to travel, however, will no doubt interfere with that goal."  
  
"Fucking _shit_!" Kouga leaped off the porch and managed a stumbling run after the other youkai as muscles stiff from rest after overuse tried, and failed, to bring him to his knees.  
  
Behind him, Inuyasha gave another shout. "Oi, Kouga! Wait! You haven't said where their trail led, you dimwit!"  
  
Kouga tossed over his shoulder as he made the best speed he could towards the forest into which Sesshomaru was leading the his own pack, "Southeast out of my territory. Let me know when you find them, dog turd!" He turned his attention back to Sesshomaru. Dammit, he had better be willing to tell Kouga whenever he found the wind user. She was going to die, die, die, because he, Kouga, would kill her.  
  
* * *  
  
Inuyasha swallowed against the throbbing growl low in his throat as he turned back to the others gathered on the porch. Crossing his legs as he dropped to a seat next to Kagome once again, he refused to meet anyone's eyes. Instead, he shoved his hands up his sleeves and fell into a truculent silence.  
  
"Some food, perhaps?" Sango asked weakly as Tenichi finally hiccoughed his wails into snuffling whimpers. She passed the baby to Kaede's competent arms and got to her feet. Making her way behind Miroku and Kagome to Kohaku, she drew her hand gently across his hair; Kohaku flinched and dropped his gaze to his clenched hands.  
  
"That is an excellent idea," Miroku endorsed heartily, getting to his feet with a little too much eagerness. "Why don't I lend you my assistance with that?" He took Sango's hand and, sliding the paper screen to the side, led her into the house. Watching them in preference to looking at any of the others who were probably staring at him, Inuyasha noticed the monk's hand slipping lower as the two walked off the porch. Shit. He had wanted to be doing something like that today to Kagome, only not so perverted; but look at what had happened: the best day of his life had turned into a farce.  
  
Shippou fidgeted, then leaned forward onto his hands. Peering up at Inuyasha's face, he burst out with a, "Dog breath," as if he had been bottling up his words like Kagome used to bottle the shikon shards. "Are we really going to help Kouga?"  
  
Inuyasha drew his lips back from his teeth. "That's what I said, isn't it?" he replied belligerently. He flicked an ear towards the kitchen; he could hear a faint sizzle of something moist approaching fire. Fish, probably--Kohaku and Miroku both smelled of such, so they had probably brought some back with them. Damn Kouga and his problems, taking up time Inuyasha could have used to figure out what to do about Kagome. Tetsusaiga didn't help her; it might happen again.  
  
"You didn't _say_," Shippou began, then shut his mouth at the glare Inuyasha gave him. He tried again. "But if he doesn't want--" Shippou stumbled to a halt. "Um. . . ."  
  
"If he doesn't want me there," Kohaku said clearly, staring across the porch, "whom else do you mean to send, Inuyasha-sama?"  
  
Beside Inuyasha, Kagome sucked in a breath. She had been too quiet all through the shit with Kouga just now, though her scent had been fluctuating from sick to the tang of guilt to the scorched bitterness of anger; but over the past few minutes it had settled--who knew what she was thinking now. She should have listened to him when he told her to stay put. Then this wouldn't have happened.  
  
"Kohaku-kun," Kagome said, drawing her knees up and resting her chin on them, "it's not you; it's what Naraku did." She looked off towards the forest, not intruding on Kohaku with her glance; she was really picking up on some of the details: she'd stared him down earlier, too. And also with Kouga, damn it--the bitch was taking the lead female thing too far.  
  
"With my hands," Kohaku said, and clenched them. "Sometimes . . . he let me remember it all, but I--" He cut his words short, closing his mouth abruptly.  
  
"Fuck it," Inuyasha snapped, taking in Kohaku's strained features. He should be saying something helpful: he was pack leader; but hell if he knew what. "That bastard Naraku liked to screw with people's minds." All the scents tracked back to that bastard Naraku in the long run. If it hadn't been for him, Inuyasha wouldn't have given the damn jewel to Kagome and then she wouldn't have--then today's shit wouldn't have occurred. When Kagome and Shippou gave him expectant looks, as if they anticipated a follow-up to that comment, he unclenched his teeth and, ears flattening further, snapped, "What?"  
  
"It is said that the body is tortured only by the demon of the mind," Kaede commented.  
  
"So what's that mean?" Shippou demanded impatiently while Inuyasha set his teeth again until his entire jaw locked tight. Sesshomaru was being a fuck, and now he had to deal with Kouga's problem, and Kagome--shit, Kagome as a youkai. This is what she got for wanting to stay with him: a fine protector of his mate he was going to be. Though she had said--but what the hell did she think she was doing?  
  
"It seems to me that it was what Inuyasha was trying to say: that we suffer from the consequences of our own faults, but should not take those of others onto ourselves. It was once told me by Miroku," said Kaede.  
  
"Miroku?" Kohaku said questioningly, looking up from his hands at the old woman.  
  
Inuyasha held back a snort as the paper screen slid to the side and the priest entered, saying cheerfully, "Did I hear my name? I hope it was in reference to something positive." He was carrying a tray with a platter and several square plates on it: Miroku was rather finicky, when he had the luxury, about fooling around with what he called "presentation." Kagome had said once that monks assigned meanings to things like arrangements of flowers and the placement of bowls and plates around a meal: just one of those weird ass things Inuyasha had learned to ignore over the seasons because otherwise you'd be driven crazy, as you would if you listened to Sango polishing Hiraikotsu with that edgily grating _strop strop strop_ noise every fucking night for almost three years. And the odor of that putrid oil she put on it! Inuyasha inhaled deeply to draw in the scent of the fish so he could get that of the oil out from his mind.  
  
"Of us all," Sango said, bringing in a bowl of some soup with noodles in it and the fish, "Inuyasha, Kohaku, Kagome-chan, and I are the ones who know how to track." She sounded like she was continuing an earlier conversation, and things were back to fucking Kouga again. And if he hadn't come, maybe then Kagome wouldn't have--hell, not that it made a difference. What mattered was what he was going to do about the wimpy wolf, and about Kagome, who had at least always had that last resort of her miko abilities. Now, she just had another hanyou weakness. Inuyasha bit angrily into the fish, the sweet flesh of the aya lost beneath the sourness of his own thoughts.  
  
"But you have Tenichi, Sango-chan," Kagome said. Inuyasha stole a narrow- eyed look at her. She was eating the soup with a calmness that had him biting his tongue. The only signs he could see that she was troubled was the pucker creasing her brow, and that might have just been about Sango. Didn't she understand that she was weaker now--and with her running off with no more sense than to interfere in a fight, how the hell he was going to protect her escaped him entirely.  
  
"Inuyasha has been teaching me how to track, too, not just Kagome. I could go," Shippou suggested, his tail fluffed as he flipped it back and forth in excitement.  
  
"Keh!" Inuyasha scoffed, then bit off the fish's head with an angry jerk, crunching it only briefly before swallowing.  
  
Miroku said diplomatically, "If their trail led near any of the villages, it might be a difficulty to convince any of the adults there to share gossip or news with you, Shippou."  
  
Shippou scowled, his tail flopping to a halt. He brushed some rice grains off his cheeks before answering, "I could use an illusion."  
  
"No, Shippou-kun, not this year," Kagome said firmly. She hesitated. Then, her ears flattening to the sides, she said, "I could."  
  
"What the hell do you mean by that, Kagome?" Inuyasha spat, slamming down the cup of tea Miroku had passed him with a bang that sloshed the hot liquid over the floor.  
  
Kagome flinched at the noise, but said with a persistence that made his temper flare further, "I think it would be something useful that I could do."  
  
"Leave?" Inuyasha fisted his hands, ignoring the bite of claws into palms. "And you think you'll be just fine? Just as you were fine when you interfered in the fight? Look what happened with that, and now you think you can head off alone? Where the fuck are you getting these ideas?"  
  
Twitching his tail in confusion, Shippou asked, "But hasn't she been learning to fight and track and do stuff on her own?" Inuyasha heard the ceramic thunks of bowls against wood as Sango and Kaede and Miroku set their food aside to watch openly.  
  
"The things you teach encourage assertiveness, Inuyasha," Miroku said.  
  
"That's not what I meant, bouzu," Inuyasha snapped. He glared at the priest, but shifted his attention back to Kagome in a hurry when he caught the spike of irritation tangling into her scent; he flinched in a conditioned reaction to the "sit!" that remark should have earned him. "Shit."  
  
Kagome showed him her teeth and narrowed eyes. "What _did_ you mean, Inuyasha."  
  
Inuyasha's roil of anger and worry evaporated under the sudden sunlight of relief. No more rosary. Emboldened, he said less harshly than before, "You're not leaving. It'd be dangerous, and you can't--"  
  
"I _can_," Kagome replied flatly. "You've been teaching me, haven't you? And I'm well able to make decisions for myself."  
  
Dark clouds hove back into sight, then drenched him. "Decisions, like the one you made with Naraku? Don't say a word," Inuyasha gritted out as she opened her mouth to reply, leaning towards her angrily. Her shoulders tightened but she didn't look away from him, her mouth setting in a stubborn line. He cursed to himself. "You think that's a good example."  
  
Kagome set her teeth then retorted, "If I hadn't, you'd be dead, Inuyasha."  
  
But _she_ was the one who had died. And now--she hadn't any business haring off by herself. "Damn it, you can't keep doing stuff like this, Kagome. Don't you understand? Sesshomaru didn't want to revive you!" His voice was edged with a snarl. "The asshole only agreed because he'd decided to do it for Kohaku. And now you want to go off alone. Bitches stay with the pack."  
  
Beside Kagome, Kohaku shifted in startled uneasiness. "Inuyasha," Sango said in a subdued tone; his ears flicked at her voice, but he kept his eyes fixed on Kagome.  
  
Kagome returned his gaze unwaveringly, though her ears flicked back and her scent fluctuated: shocked, then, to his disgust, angered once more. Her ears turned forward aggressively. What he wouldn't give to have a rosary for her sometimes. "Let me share an equally absurd phrase with you, Inuyasha: barefoot and pregnant. I can track, and I can move around quickly. It makes sense for me to go, even if you--"  
  
"Kagome, fucking listen to me!"  
  
"What, then?"  
  
"It's dangerous. Do you get that?" Still feeling provoked, he spat out, "Any youkai who catches a hanyou alone will pick on you. You still suck at fighting. And if the wimpy wolf couldn't track them because the trail was too old, you won't be able to. You don't know shit about tracking except by smell." Inuyasha glared at her; she better not keep pushing her idea.  
  
Kagome held his glance until the silence began to stretch, then dropped her eyes. Inuyasha held back a sigh of relief as he saw her ears ease flat in the first sign of capitulation; the anger didn't fade immediately from her scent, but at least she was listening to him once more. And if he could only train her to obey, he wouldn't have this problem again.  
  
"Inuyasha," Miroku said, sounding awed. "That is . . . that is actually reasonable."  
  
"Yes, and they're not yelling insults and creating craters in the ground," Sango said with a smile.  
  
"It is a small improvement," Kaede agreed. Shippou just looked between them both, wearing a betrayed expression as if some favorite toy had broken.  
  
Inuyasha slid a glance at them, saying in a low growl, "You guys. . . . "  
  
Kagome said in a tired tone, "Do you all have to talk about this?"  
  
Sango's smile faded, her hands moving restlessly before she picked up her bowl of soup once more, "This doesn't answer whom we should send, however. Inuyasha, you wouldn't be a good choice for the same tracking reason that applies to Kagome-chan."  
  
"Keh! I don't want to go looking for wolves anyway," Inuyasha said. Now if he could just figure out what to do about sealing her. Maybe if he ripped out one of her fangs, Toutousai could make another sword like Tetsusaiga. Only she had as much business with a sword as she had traipsing around where any fucking horny youkai might run across her trail. It might give her worse ideas than that self-sufficient shit she seemed to have in mind already. Did she think he had been joking about the twenty years?  
  
A few moments later, "If you weaned him, you could leave Tenichi with me, Sango," Kaede said.  
  
"I . . . suppose," Sango said with reluctant unhappiness. She set her bowl aside, then picked it up again. Miroku looked equally perturbed. Inuyasha agreed with him: Sango was still nursing; she shouldn't have to leave the kid. And again they were back to the wimpy wolf and his problems. He hoped Kouga choked on some fish bones soon. Or got fleas.  
  
"Inuyasha-sama, what did the wolf say about the trail?" came the voice of another type of flea; Inuyasha spotted the old youkai clinging to the small Kirara's ear.  
  
Inuyasha jigged a knee impatiently--the cloth of his hakama was wet there, where he'd managed to get it in the spilt tea--and folded his arms with his hands up his sleeves. "That he couldn't follow it," he sneered in reply. Stupid wolf to have waited that long to see what was going on.  
  
Miroku sighed, picking another morsel of fish from his plate and eating it with a resigned air. "Maybe reasonable was too optimistic," he commented, ignoring Inuyasha's snort. "Myouga-sama, he said that the trail left his territory. To the southwest."  
  
"Southeast," Kaede corrected as Sango reached over to take Miroku's empty bowl and stack it inside her own. The warming heat of the day made the fish smell hang heavily in the air for Inuyasha, strong enough to cover the musty smell of silkworm eggs one of the nearby villagers had set out in the sun; it would probably be before the next new moon that the silk larvae would start to hatch and the air would be thick with the sounds of their jaws munching ceaselessly on the mulberry leaves the village women would feed them. And then there would be days and days of stench later when the cocoons were roasted. Kagome hadn't liked the odor of that either. They should make a point of having fish often then.  
  
The priest nodded agreeably, "Southeast, then. I was rather distracted by his chasing after Sesshomaru."  
  
"Aa, southeast," Kohaku confirmed, placing his chopsticks in a neat line across his empty bowl.  
  
Kirara shook her head and gave a hiss as the flea sampled a drink from her, making a sucking noise louder than might be expected from his small size. He popped free just as Kirara lifted a hind leg to swat at him, nimbly hopping to her other ear. "Then Kohaku could still go, couldn't he?"  
  
"Oi, how long have you been listening, Myouga-jijii?" Inuyasha asked crossly. Sango's and Kohaku's eyes widened, their mouths kicking up in the same way when they smiled; their scents even smelled a bit alike in their excitement. Inuyasha hoped like hell that he smelled nothing like Sesshomaru.  
  
Shippou said excitedly, "Kohaku wouldn't be in Kouga's territory! So what Kouga said doesn't make a difference."  
  
Sango leaned against Miroku's shoulder, taking the drowsing Tenichi from Kaede and looking down at his face. "Someone should still go with him, though. In case information was needed from Kouga or something."  
  
The kitsune almost choked on his chopsticks. "Let me go," he suggested, opening his eyes wide with eagerness. Damn puppy face. Inuyasha looked away before Shippou could turn it on him; instead, the kitsune looked at Kagome with pleading eyes. "Pleeeeeeease."  
  
Kagome shifted, drawing her knees up to her chest again. She hadn't even eaten half her meal, Inuyasha noted: the fish had only been picked at and at least two-thirds of the soup was still in the bowl. Her mouth turned down at the corners. "I said no, Shippou-kun."  
  
"But that was before. This time I'd be with Kohaku," Shippou said, a whining note entering his voice. He scooted over next to Kagome and tugged at one of her hands. "Please please please."  
  
With a growl, Inuyasha picked up the boy by the back of his hakama and pulled him away from Kagome. Shippou let out an indignant yawp, his heels dragging along the floor. Giving the kitsune a shake, Inuyasha dropped him; Shippou landed on his rear. "Kagome said no, so let it alone, runt. You're still too little."  
  
"Dog breath," the kitsune began, smelling infuriated.  
  
"Myouga-jichan, you could go, couldn't you?" Kagome said over the kitsune's protest. Inuyasha's knee stilled in surprise; she hadn't been sulking. He looked at her more closely. Her skin was still taut and reddened, but beneath that--maybe she was tired. He recalled the time Kikyou had tried to seal him. Hell, of course she was tired. He'd felt like shit afterwards. Shit with burns.  
  
Agreement strongly colored Sango's voice as she said, "That would be kind of you, Myouga-jii. If Kohaku needed more details from Kouga . . . or if some other youkai had seen the two. . . . You're so good at gathering news." This was laying it on a little thick, but Inuyasha could see, along with the others, how some of the tension had lightened from Kohaku's expression at the prospect.  
  
"Ah . . . er," Myouga mumbled, his gray whiskers dipping with uncertainty.  
  
"Sounds like you guys could leave in the morning," Inuyasha said, trying not to seem as satisfied as he felt. No reason for Kagome to leave, and a solution to the wimpy wolf's problem. Keh. He shoved the remains of his meal at Shippou, who scowled. Stretching out in a patch of sunlight along the edge of the porch, he propped his head on his arms as if he were going to take a nap.  
  
"Inuyasha-sama," the flea said in resignation.  
  
Kohaku gathered his things together and stood, saying, "I'll start to get ready, then." Inuyasha followed his movement with one ear as the boy went into the house.  
  
With a bound, the flea followed after him. "Kohaku, I have many years of experience gathering all sorts of information . . . " Inuyasha heard him say before tuning out the sound of the flea's voice. "Oi, bitch," he said when Kagome didn't move as the others began to get up and Shippou darted off after Kohaku, telling the older boy to wait up for him, "if you're going to bathe, better do it now." He could hear her start, then get to her feet and pause.  
  
"Take those, please?" Sango said to Miroku. Her footsteps approached Kagome. "Kagome-chan, do you mind if I join you?" Miroku stepped into the house. Inuyasha felt the tread of the priest's steps through the floorboards of the porch, the sound mingling with the reverberations through the wood where his stomach and arms and thighs pressed against it. If he shifted and pushed his toes against the floor, he'd feel it that way, too.  
  
Kagome stirred, with the sound of her hair slipping over her shoulders, as if she'd shaken her head to wake herself up. "I'd like that," she said, her voice warming slightly. "Kaede-bachan, would you . . . ?"  
  
"A bath would be enjoyable," Kaede agreed, her knees cracking as she stood.  
  
"I'll get our things--Miroku can watch Tenichi," Sango said, stepping into the house.  
  
Inuyasha twisted his ears back to follow her progress; his curiosity was rewarded with a smooth murmur of, ". . . Of course. Though some recompense shall be necessary--but we can talk that over, can't we? This evening. Late." It was followed by a thump and a groan. Inuyasha shifted his head, nesting his face in his arms so that Kagome and Kaede wouldn't see him snickering. Perverted bouzu.  
  
Only moments after the women left, however, Miroku's steps returned to the porch. "Inuyasha." Inuyasha tried to keep his ears from twitching; he could tell from the tone of the priest's voice that he wanted something, and if Miroku thought he was asleep, perhaps he wouldn't be bothered. "Inuyasha." That hope was proven false when Miroku nudged him in the ribs, and not gently, either.  
  
"Oi, bouzu!" Inuyasha reared up, turning a glare on Miroku. "What did you do that for?"  
  
Miroku shoved the baby at him. Tenichi's chin was all wet with drool. Inuyasha eyed him distrustfully. "Either take the baby, Inuyasha, or wash the dishes."  
  
Inuyasha's attempt to recoil was thwarted when Miroku dumped the baby in his lap. "Shit!"  
  
Miroku thumped Inuyasha on the head with the heel of his palm. "Watch your language around my son, Inuyasha. I don't want him growing up to follow your example."  
  
"So he's going to follow yours, then?" Inuyasha retorted rudely.  
  
Miroku headed back towards the kitchen, tossing a smug, "I _am_ the better man," over his shoulder as he went.  
  
"Keh!" Inuyasha stared at the baby in his lap. Tenichi raised a hand, fingers splayed. He had fat arms, Inuyasha observed, with creases around the wrists and elbows as if his hands and lower and upper arms were separate pieces just hinged together by thick pads of skin. The baby looked like a miniature sumo wrestler, a very bloated Miroku. Inuyasha slid a glance at Kirara; the firecat passed one ruby eye over him before curling up and tucking her tails over her nose.  
  
The baby's immobile weight reminded Inuyasha of that cat at Kagome's old house. Tentatively, he encircled Tenichi's wrists with his own hands, and hefted the baby up by them so as to balance him on him on his rear. The small eyes widened and the mouth fell open. "Eehee." It wasn't a noise of distress; emboldened, Inuyasha raised one fat arm, then lowered it and raised the other. The noise was repeated. Inuyasha see-sawed the arms back and forth a bit more. It was a lot like Kagome's cat. Except, he thought as a sour odor assailed his nose, that cat didn't stink. "Miiiiirokuuuu."  
  
* * *  
  
"Sango, come to bed," Miroku said from behind her. The lantern he had brought with him, in addition to the shine of the waxing moon's crescent through the open window, provided just enough light that Sango could see the dark fringe of Tenichi's lashes against his round cheeks.  
  
"In a moment," she said absently, brushing back the baby's dusting of hair.  
  
When Miroku set the lantern down, the shadows slid along the wall and over Hiraikotsu like the silhouettes of dancers Sango had once seen at a festival just after her father had first allowed her to fight with the other taijiya. She lifted her eyes from Tenichi to them, the Miroku-shape approaching the Sango-shape in a flickering glide. Dropping to his knees behind her, he lifted the heavy tail of her hair to one side. "I want to show you something," he said, the movement of his breath across her skin raising the fine hairs at her nape.  
  
She leaned back against him as his hands moved from her shoulders to her breasts, stroking through the thin fabric of her sleeping kimono. "I was going to nurse the baby," Sango replied, her voice falling as Miroku's touches became more insistent.  
  
"You can do that later. Come to bed."  
  
Sango shivered at the sensitive trail of a finger along the line of her jaw. Following its encouragement, she turned her face towards Miroku, her eyelids drifting shut. "He'll wake up just as we start to sleep if I don't."  
  
His lips brushed hers, teasingly. "Then we'll stay up. Sango, I have something I want to show you."  
  
Sango opened her eyes and slid a glance at him over her shoulder, stifling a betraying flicker of amusement. He'd said not that long again that he wanted to hear her laugh while he was inside her; she had decided to see how long she could make him wait. Or maybe get him to laugh first, though it was hard to think of something witty at the called-for moment. He had an edge on her in that. "I've seen it already," she said, attempting to sound nonchalant despite the blush that wanted to rise in her cheeks. Besides, if he did succeed, he'd probably brag about it to Inuyasha. Or, worse, her brother.  
  
His mouth quirking up at one corner, Miroku raised an eyebrow at her in the manner that so often served to fluster her when he did it in front of others: it had been when they were together, like this, that she'd first seen that look on his face. He caught the hand she lifted to tug at his hair. "Not this, you haven't," he said fervently, rising from his knees and urging her to follow him to the futon.  
  
Curious, she sat beside him; he had already dropped her hand to pick at the ties of a silk-wrapped, squarish bundle. "What is it, Miroku?" She was baffled; he was stalling--things--to show her this object?  
  
"I got it today," he replied, slipping a bundle of paper out of the wrappings.  
  
Feeling cold, suspicion had her asking, "You bought it?"  
  
"No, no," he replied breezily, then caused Sango to stiffen when he added, "I took it in trade for that exorcism this morning."  
  
"You got a book--instead of money, or rice, or even some cloth?"  
  
"Just look at it, Sango," Miroku said, unfolding the pleated strip of thick paper. She had only heard him sound more excited than this a few times, a number low enough that she wouldn't even need the fingers of a single hand to count. "It's a sutra."  
  
_We could have used the money or the cloth. Tenichi grows so quickly_, Sango thought with flash of resentfulness as she bent her head to look at the sheet Miroku was stretching across her thighs. "But you know I can't . . . read . . . kanji," she began, trailing off as she took in the sketches on the pages. The drawings. Men and women together. They were--one of the women was-- Sango gasped and jerked her eyes away from the pages to look at Miroku in accusation. "You traded an exorcism for a book of _dirty pictures_?" she asked incredulously, her voice climbing.  
  
Miroku said in an injured tone, quickly gathering the book from her with careful fingers when Sango twitched, "I said it's a sutra! Part of one, at least," he amended.  
  
"A sutra," Sango repeated disbelievingly.  
  
"Yes. It's called the--"  
  
"About--about--sex."  
  
"Yes, and--"  
  
This was what he wanted for having watched Tenichi all afternoon? Sango was never, ever, ever going to let her son take after this man. "You are such a _pervert_!" she cried, and shoved her elbow sideways, planting the blow solidly in his solar plexus.  
  
His breath rushing from him in a pained wheeze, Miroku folded over like the accordion-pleated pages of his little book, which slipped from his grasp to the floor. "Sa--sa--"  
  
Ignoring him, Sango untied the plain ribbon holding back the tail of her hair, then slipped past Miroku to the far side of the futon. "Poor Kagome- chan," she said over the choking noises of her husband attempting to catch his breath in feeble gasps. Tenichi would be fine for a bit longer; it rather pleased her to talk to Miroku as if nothing was out of the ordinary at the moment; although, from one angle, nothing really was.  
  
"Sango, I--" Miroku said, sounding surprised and a bit desperate.  
  
Sango lay back, pulling the light blanket up to her waist. "She didn't say much at the baths today, but she felt just horribly, I could tell." Her brow had been furrowed the whole time, even when they were soaking in the hot water and Sango had tried to tell the joke of the oni and the baths attendant. Kagome hadn't even noticed when Sango realized partway through that she had forgotten the point of the joke and had to trail off lamely. That had been obvious after Kaede chuckled and Kagome joined in with a belated laugh and a compliment on the joke.  
  
With an apologetic sigh, Miroku stretched out beside her. Hesitant still, he slipped one of his arms under her head and the other around her waist. "She has had a lot to which to adjust."  
  
Sango shifted, debating it, then tucked herself closer to Miroku. She picked up his right hand from her waist and smoothed the fingers flat, placing her palm to his as she'd done almost every night since the last fight with Naraku, when that last final devastation of the air rip had torn apart the courtyard and then, when the earth had closed behind Kikyou and Naraku, had stopped with silence. Their palms were about the same size, though his fingers were longer, broader. "She . . . really needs Inuyasha."  
  
Miroku's breath puffed in a quiet laugh, stirring some of her hair. "It's all certainly a change of pace for the two of them."  
  
Sango clasped his hand between the two of hers, pulling them up and tucking them between her breasts. He laced his fingers with her own. "She left her mother . . . her brother . . . behind for him."  
  
Miroku kissed her near earlobe. "Kohaku is going only on a brief trip," he said in a murmur, raising himself above her with a shift of the arm under her head.  
  
She turned her gaze from the ceiling to his face, studying the way the hairs of the broad end of one of his eyebrows splayed in a miniature cowlick. With the hand not twined with his, she reached up and smoothed the line of that eyebrow with her fingertip, then traced the shallow curve of the other as well. "This time." They had had other versions of this conversation before. Sango felt heavy; there really wasn't anything she could do but wait and see. Nothing she could think of seemed appropriate to help him, though most days Kohaku seemed as cheerful and delighted with things as he had when a boy.  
  
"But what about you, Sango?" Miroku kissed the line of her jaw.  
  
Her eyes closed, she tipped her head back to expose her throat. "Me?"  
  
"You. Sango, wife. My wife." His mouth trailed over her neck and to her ear again. "It's been a year. Do you . . . regret staying?"  
  
Letting go of his hand, she lifted hers to his neck, toying with the short hairs there. "No." She sighed; what he was doing felt particularly nice. "I like being a family. I like having a family." With the pressure of her hands, she urged him closer until she could feel the warmth and weight of him against her. "Taijiya--we always left family at home when we went out for a job."  
  
His fingers roved the neckline of her kimono. "Sango . . . " A wheedling note entered his voice.  
  
Resigned, she said, "You want us to . . . do those sutra things." He kissed her again, taking it deeper in affirming response. An image of the woman that had caught her eye flashed in her mind. "May I choose which one?"  
  
"Mmm." She told him. Miroku blinked, breaking the rhythm of his kisses to stare down at her. His eyes, the same lovely dark blue of the sun striking a centipede youkai carapace, were wide with surprise. "Sango, that. . . ." Her cheeks stained red, but nevertheless she flexed beneath him, the muscles from years of training allowing her to reverse their positions smoothly. Looking dazed and rumpled in a way that made her blush all the more, he gazed up at her. "And to think I thought you'd prefer the conservative ones. "  
  
"Father taught me to live strongly," she said, her hair sliding over her shoulder; a few loose strands tangled with his eyelashes as she bent to capture his lips.  
  
He chuckled ruefully. "As long as I survive, then." Eager, his hands reached up as her mouth came down, fingers feeling the way through the ties of her clothes.  
  
* * *  
  
Kagome woke with a jerk, feeling something pricking her cheek. She slapped a hand to her skin, looking at the lip of the well against which she had fallen asleep. Splinters. It stood to reason, with a day like today. Carefully, she rubbed at her cheekbone with the pad of her index finger until she could feel the sliver shift; then, even more gently, she used the edge of her claw to scrape it away. Sighing, she brushed her finger off on her trousers. Her cheek felt a little abraded, but at least the splinter was gone.  
  
She stared at the well apathetically for a minute, ears swiveling as she took in the evening noises: muted voices from behind closed doors in the village, the shifting of leaves in the forest and a small animal's cry-- either an owl or some other night bird, she couldn't quite tell. The moon was well up in the sky: she must have missed dinner, but she wasn't very hungry anyway. She wasn't aching, either; the sun-burnt feeling of her skin had faded, which was a small consolation. Kagome held back a noise of pained disgust as she leaned away from the well. Things had seemed so promising this morning, but then Inuyasha had been a baka about Kouga, and she--Inuyasha was right, she had been an idiot as well.  
  
Her ears flattened guiltily. She had been angry because it felt like Inuyasha had been throwing back in her face her attempts to help him--but hadn't she done the same thing in refusing to listen to him? Trying to argue with what he had said she was and wasn't ready for, wasn't that sort of like throwing his help back in his face, too, by trying to overdo things?  
  
Kagome winced and looked down into the blank darkness of the well. _Mama_. It had been about a year since she last . . . it was almost her birthday, though Kagome had lost track of the specific calendar date months and months ago; but Souta's would be not long after. Another year more and he'd be in middle school. Kagome stood. Mama wasn't there for advice anymore, and she didn't really want to talk to anybody else just yet, so going back to the house was out. Same with the thicket. Her ears caught a flutter of sound; she looked up to see a pale moth fluttering by, its flight erratic. Just beyond it was the God Tree.  
  
Spurred by a sudden idea, Kagome headed toward the tree, leaping carefully onto the low, broad branch where Inuyasha liked to rest. His scent still marked it clearly, though not freshly; he hadn't been there since last night, when she had made the first moves that had ended with--with. . . . She wasn't exactly sure how to phrase it. Much more serious than dating, but still. . . . _But still, he hadn't needed to laugh at me_, she thought with a renewal of indignation. She moved quickly to a higher branch, her nervousness buried beneath a sense of injustice. Surely, if he could keep her from doing things because he didn't think it wise, she had the same responsibility towards him. Preventing the fight with Kouga from continuing had been entirely justified.  
  
Kagome hoisted herself up another branch, moving more slowly as the limbs became thinner and sparser the higher she went. She wouldn't look down until she got as far up as she could go. By then she should be able to see all of the shrine grounds and where her house would be and maybe even as far as the river. The leaves were thick enough at this point, still, to block much of the moonlight and make things difficult to see through the shadows, but she could still hear and smell well enough: the fresh green of the leaves and the sweet up-rushing of sap to the marks her claws left behind in the wood, and the reassuring scents of the village, smoke and rice and fresh-turned vegetable patches and people.  
  
At least the sealing thing was an easy matter to address. Kagome grimaced, feeling cautiously for the next branch. They were starting to bend under her weight, even when she kept close to the trunk, so she tried to place her feet on different boughs, distributing her weight. It really wasn't that huge a problem, really; she just needed not to use her miko powers again, and things would be fine.  
  
A thought struck her as she started to pull herself up another limb higher, so shattering her concentration that her feet slipped; with the slow, reluctant crack of green wood, the weight-bearing branch beneath her gave way, and the one she slipped to after that likewise, until she dangled from arms stretched overhead to an even frailer branch. Heart thumping so strongly that she could hear the blood pulsing rapidly through her in panic, Kagome scrambled to wrap her legs around the swaying trunk, like trying to pole climb in gym class. Shifting her hands-grip likewise, she sank her claws as deeply into the God Tree as possible. She should have known better than to try climbing a sacred tree in the first place. Kagome looked down through what she could see of the leaves and shadows, squeezed her eyes shut and clung more tightly to the trunk. She was stupid to have tried this, stupid stupid stupid.  
  
After what felt like a season's passage, her heartbeat slowed enough that she felt she could breathe normally again. Determinedly not looking towards the ground, she peered up instead, past the sparse leaves towards the moon. She was no old man on the mountain; elevation did not bring revelation. It just brought dismaying possibilities. Moving one foot hesitantly, Kagome tried to feel around the trunk for branches she might step on so as to climb down. There were none, however: only the long scar of a limb that had broken beneath her already. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to the trunk of the tree, breathing in the smell of bark and the bugs inhabiting it; but that didn't stop the disquiet twisting her stomach. She was a miko. Shrine maidens were supposed to be virginal. What if she and Inuyasha could never do anything without unsealing her?  
  
Kagome checked the moon again when a cool breeze shifted the leaves obscuring it. The waxing crescent had only moved a little, and she sighed. It had been--she thought back--four nights since the new quarter moon and her human night, and four nights before that for Inuyasha. Having hers in such close proximity to his was rather convenient: his served as a reminder that hers was approaching. And, thankfully, hanyou living together didn't seem to cycle together. It would have been weird, synchronizing with him like Sango and she had over the months of shard-hunting. She felt a blush rise at the thought. She hadn't realized how obvious her period would have been to Inuyasha until Sango's had started again, maybe a week and a half ago. At least he had never said anything; actually, considering his general experience with tact, it was surprising that he hadn't. She was so glad he hadn't. Kagome felt a rush of benevolence towards him at the thought.  
  
"Kagome?" Inuyasha's voice startled her so much that her feet slipped, sending the slender trunk shaking as she scrambled to regain a foothold. A vibration shivered through the tree, Inuyasha probably landing on that low branch. "Oi, bitch, what are you doing? Thought you didn't like sleeping in trees."  
  
All feelings of benevolence disappeared under a rush of mortification, followed quickly by a flash of dismay. Why did he have to show up just now? If he'd only come a little later, she was certain to have figured a way down. "I--I was thinking," she replied lamely, then heard leaves rustling and felt movement in the tree below her. "Don't! Stop, don't come up." She looked over one shoulder, then the other, trying to see where he was. His voice was closer--there, she could see his hair when the trunk swayed from her twisting. He was coming up after her, and he'd get her like a fireman fetching a kitten. But if she got herself down--she could do that. She could. She wasn't a child, or a puppy, or a kitten to be plucked from trouble.  
  
"Bitch, what are you talking about? What the hell are you doing?" Inuyasha asked in irritation.  
  
"I'm coming down," Kagome replied loudly, gathering her courage. If this doesn't work, I'll die without ever having kissed him, she told herself with morbid humor as she tried to ignore the queasiness in her stomach. She took a breath, and then another on a gasp. That's it! Oh, the idea was perfect; she just had to bring it up with Inuyasha. And to do that, she had to get down first. She flung herself away from the trunk.  
  
Kagome fell at an angle from the tree, hearing a, "What--shit!" muffled somewhat by the air past her ears as the ground rushed up more quickly than she had anticipated; she barely got herself tucked in time, hitting and rolling over again and again before stopping in a breathless but unbruised sprawl. One point to being a hanyou: resilience. But I need to figure out how Inuyasha does that feather-like landing, Kagome decided, pushing herself up to her hands and knees only to be jerked upright by Inuyasha's hand in her collar. He dumped her on her feet. "What the _fuck_ were you doing?"  
  
Kagome tugged at her shirt. "Thinking," she said, feeling a heady excitement; probably all the adrenaline she'd just pumped into her system. She smiled at Inuyasha, ignoring the sharpness of his glance and the scowl drawing his brows together.  
  
Inuyasha looked confused for the space of a second, then snapped angrily, "The hell you were."  
  
"I was thinking," she repeated quietly, relaxing her hands at her sides as she kept her eyes on his, "that sometimes you're a baka and sometimes I'm a baka."  
  
Inuyasha scoffed, "Like just now?" His hands clenched.  
  
Kagome shook her head, biting her lip and then blurting, "Now, I want you to kiss me."  
  
Inuyasha fell back a step, unfolding his arms as his eyes widened with confusion, or maybe disbelief. "A k-kiss," he stuttered, ears twitching. Kagome nodded, sure that he could smell the nervousness she felt mixing with the excitement until she wasn't sure if she was going to be sick or throw herself at him if he didn't say something right now. "Why?"  
  
Kagome faltered, feeling some of the excitement drain away. She'd sort of expected him to jump on the opportunity, not ask questions about it. "Because . . .  
  
Inuyasha recovered, folding his arms across his chest and giving her a pointed look, though his eyebrows were still raised a little, as if he was trying to pull the experienced-samurai-thing against a bee with a really long stinger. "Because?"  
  
"Well, I was thinking about miko," she began, then said hastily, when she saw his eyes begin to narrow, "And about us!" Surprised, he drew back a little. She fidgeted again at the thought of explaining this. Forging onward more slowly, she said, "And I remembered that they're . . . you know," she said in embarrassment, gesturing with one hand.  
  
Inuyasha's glance flicked from it to her face. "Know what?"  
  
"About miko and . . . their powers."  
  
"Oi, are you trying to play guessing games or something?"  
  
"That if we . . . did anything . . ." She couldn't bring herself to look at him, staring instead at his hands as she felt her face get hotter, her ears twisting to the sides.  
  
"That you would purify me," Inuyasha said, enlightenment in his rough voice.  
  
Kagome felt as if a bucket of snowmelt had been dashed in her face. "No!" She jerked her gaze up to his, horrified at the suggestion. "That wouldn't happen--I wouldn't do that. I couldn't do that. And, anyway, as long as I don't use my powers, then nothing is going to happen anyway, right?" She bunched the material of her trousers in her hands, unable to decipher the expression that flickered across his face at that. "I remembered that they're supposed to be virginal," she blurted in a rush, watching his face anxiously for reaction.  
  
Inuyasha blinked. "Who says that?"  
  
Kagome was taken aback in turn. "Well--well--it's tradition, isn't it? Miko are miko until they marry, and then they're not miko anymore. That's what Jiichan told me when I was little, when the miko that helped at our shrine got married."  
  
With a snort, Inuyasha said, "Wasn't he the one that kept saying all those lines about why you were here rather than taking those stupid tests? I don't know why the hell you'd listen to anything he'd say," he grumbled, unfolding his arms and looking sidelong at her.  
  
"He's my grandfather," Kagome explained patiently. She felt her ears flattening as her anxiety rose. Was he actually going to do it, or not? What was she going to do if he said no? What was she going to do if he--  
  
"So what difference does this whole virginal thing make?" he asked, just sending her roiling in excruciating embarrassment. Why did she have to bring this up with the one person in her whole life who, she was realizing, had never grown up in a social situation where the issue made a difference? Why hadn't she just taken things into her own hands and kissed him first? Why-- "Oi!" Inuyasha said sharply, her eyes jerking back to his from where they'd shifted to stare at the God Tree in rising trepidation.  
  
She forced herself to release her hold on her trousers; the cuffs were halfway up her calves with all the material she'd wadded in her hands. "I thought maybe it might unseal me," she managed, looking fixedly at the ground. Her toes were dirty again. His were just dusty. It seemed yet again appropriate for the day this had become to know that bathing just made it worse, the dampness on her clean feet turning dust to mud. Then she heard his heartbeat shift, its strong pace quickening.  
  
It was perfect once she figured out what to do with her nose. _And maybe the air thing needs improvement_, Kagome thought, taking a deep inhalation of it when Inuyasha lifted his head. His chest moved beneath her hands with his own breath as he stared at her, his eyes dark with pupil, the cloth of his haori warm to the touch. "Do it again."  
  
"Don't order me around," he retorted, the pitch of his voice equal with hers, and then obeyed. She got the breathing down this time, the headiness of his scent encouraging her to lean forward into the support of his hands on her shoulders. A few moments later, Kagome opened her eyes again when Inuyasha asked, "So?" He sounded a little unnerved, or maybe just uncertain. Her heart was going to pound its way out of her chest at any moment, as if she'd been running another training race with him. Only those never left her feeling like this, as if his scent and his touch were the glue holding her together. "That was, um, uh--educational? Wonderful. I need to sit down." Kagome could still hear the quickness of his heart's pace; she wondered if her face was red. She thought his maybe was, a little along the cheekbones, but in the moonlight it was almost impossible to tell for certain.  
  
"Keh. If I'm teaching again, remember I'm in charge," he muttered, tugging her after him towards the base of the God Tree, but not before she saw the self-satisfied look gracing his face.  
  
He crossed his legs as usual; she tucked hers beneath her as she sat facing him, shoulder to the trunk. "Hai," Kagome replied, calming as she breathed in the air of the God Tree, mouth curving upwards at the corners. He'd mumbled something when their noses had bumped the first time; she didn't think he had any more experience at this than she did. The thought cheered her immensely. Little bursts of euphoria kept rising within her, making her want to giggle, or--or do it again. Wonderful. Yes.  
  
"It didn't prove anything, though," Inuyasha remarked with a dogged return to the reason for the occasion.  
  
Kagome's smile faded. She would have thought that he might have said something--well, of course not something romantic, but--he was staring at her again. She marshaled an inquiring, "Un?"  
  
"That miko and priest we met a couple summers ago, remember? They were fucki--oi," he interrupted what he was going to say to give her a dirty look. "That's where you got the idea, wasn't it? To put a fucking kekkai around Kouga. Wasn't it?"  
  
"Maybe . . . " Kagome tried to imagine the pair as a couple. Sleeping together. Really? And it hadn't made a difference to the miko's powers. Wait. He'd known that, and he'd kissed her anyways? A flush of pleasure made her smile at him.  
  
It was apparently not the reaction he was anticipating. Inuyasha blinked, then said, "How could you pick that up, but not pick up that they were fucking?" The words sounded like he ought to be exasperated, but his tone was more than a little puzzled, as if colored by some other thoughts.  
  
Kagome said lightly, "Maybe it's because I'm not like you and Miroku." Although considering she'd asked for the kiss, on top of last night . . . she wasn't ever going to point that out to him, though. Never.  
  
This time the irritation did surface. "Yeah, he knows when to keep out of fights."  
  
Piqued, jolted out of her reveries, Kagome leaned forward, bracing her hands on his thigh, to glare up at Inuyasha. "You said I was yours. Didn't you?" She was going to put this out there so plainly that he wouldn't be able to question it again. "That's part of why you were fighting him, wasn't it?"  
  
"So what if it was?" Inuyasha asked, eying her warily.  
  
"Then don't worry that he'll take me, or that I'll leave. He can't. I won't. That's why I stopped you. Fighting was pointless. You didn't have to prove anything.  
  
"Keh! Who said I was trying to?"  
  
"Sometimes you're just like a junior high student," she said wearily.  
  
"At least I know that kissing does shit about virginity!" he shot back, grabbing her wrists when a shift of her weight inadvertently sent her claws pricking through the fabric of his hakama.  
  
"I thought it would be enough to tell!" At least she hadn't had to spell it all out to him. Arousal was arousal, right? Though the idea had apparently been flawed from the start.  
  
He stared down at her, his hands around her wrists, then gave her a grin that made her pause as much for its suddenness as the way it lightened the usual serious cast of his features, made his mouth curl in a way that drew her eyes. "You know you still need training."  
  
"So you said," Kagome said cautiously, feeling the way each of his words seemed to settle in her stomach.  
  
Inuyasha nodded, and slid his hands up her arms. "We should practice some more, then."  
  
"Now, you mean?"  
  
"Yeah. But. . . ."  
  
"But?"  
  
"Don't you have some of that tooth paste shit of yours left?"  
  
Kagome looked at him in confusion. How the heck did he get from training to toothpaste? "A little."  
  
"You said it tasted good. . . ."


End file.
